Drink me.

I'm going to get a bit personal here, for a moment, and talk about things that I normally keep to myself. 

At 5'8", I'm of fairly average height for a woman. I'm not particularly tall. At a 150 pounds and a dress size eight, I'm really quite average all around. 

I've never felt like it, though. I've always felt like this: 

Maybe it comes from the fact that I was told by doctors that I would likely grow up to be over 6' tall, and I began intentionally stunting my growth for fear of that when I was just a little girl. Maybe it's the fact that I was taller than my mother by the time that I was ten, and that I reached my current height before I entered middle school. Maybe it's the fact that one of my childhood best friends was so tiny that in third grade, our teacher couldn't see her over the desk and thought that she was absent on the first day. Maybe it was that I grew up in a small house with low ceilings and tiny rooms that gave me a sense of claustrophobia. Whatever it is, I never, ever wanted to grow. I always felt that I was too big. 

I've done various things to make myself seem smaller-- I wear lots of vertical stripes and clothing which is cropped in a way that shortens a person, I choose prints and patterns which are cute, dainty and diminutive, I slouch as much as I can possibly get away with (which I was doing fairly well for myself with, I felt, until Malignus decided that I needed to improve my posture) and I'm never seen wearing heels. I did bring a pair with me to TASSP, and it was the first time that I wore heels in as long as I can remember, certainly at least a year. 

There was one thing which I always took comfort in, sort of an adage that I'd come to love: "All girls are the same height when they're over a lap." I really, truly believed in this, and it did wonders for me. While being spanked OTK, no matter by whom, I felt truly small. I don't mean that I felt "little" or that I felt "young." I felt like a small thing, and it was an absolutely beautiful feeling. 

Recently, I was talking to one of my Tops about these feelings, and about how badly I wanted to have a smaller body, and I said "At least I can take comfort in the fact that when I'm over your lap, you can't tell!" 

"Well, you know that's not actually, true, right Alex?" he asked. I shook my head. I thoroughly believed that it was true. "I can still tell how far you stretch out to, and your center of gravity is still in the wrong place." 

I never believed in Santa, or in the Easter Bunny, or any of that stuff, and I originally didn't believe in God, then forced myself to, so when I stopped believing, it wasn't painful. As a result, this was the first time in my life that I really experienced having something which had previously been rather sacred to me taken away. 

You're sure? I'm still too big? 

I still haven't recovered from it, entirely. It never mattered to me what my size was compared to the person spanking me, but suddenly, it's become something which is on my mind. 

I know I'll get over it. I know I'll let go and stop worrying and let myself feel safe and good while being spanked. I'm just still a little heart broken. 

The day that I had that conversation, I called my doctor friend and my scientist friend and asked them if there was a way that I could be shrunk. When they promised me that there was no safe way, I started doing research on my own, JUST IN CASE. 

I know that I'm just going to have to find a way to accept myself. 

For a while now, I've been dating a boy here in Sioux Falls. He's clever and funny, he gets my sense of humor, and on our first date, we spent most of the time discussing Hume's empiricism. He's also 6'5" and extremely strong because he does physical work. For the first time since I was a teenager, I felt small beside him. I could put my hand up to his and feel like I had little, tiny fingers. He could pull me down with the tiniest of efforts on his part. We were just "getting there" romantically, but I had high hopes for it. See, I don't need all of my relationships to satisfy every part of me. That would be very against the point of Polyamory for me. I was hoping that if I had, for the first time since I was a girl, someone who made me feel small sometimes around, then I would get over the complex that I'm big in general. I imagined that having someone who made me feel small would make it so that I never felt "too big." I thought that it would make me alright with my body.

Sorry, not happening!

Anyway, it doesn't matter what I imagined might happen, because he met someone with whom he wants to have a monogamous relationship, so we won't be seeing each other anymore. 

I realized tonight, that this may actually be a good thing. There are no "drink me" bottles floating around, and I'm stuck with myself for the rest of my life. The truth of the matter is, I don't need someone else to make me feel good about myself. I have to rock what I've got and be truly confident in myself in order to be happy and successful. The way that I look or appear to others or seem next to them shouldn't influence the way that I feel. 

The truth of the matter is that I'm the only one who thinks that I'm so large that I take up the entire room and I've got my head on the ceiling, but as long as I'm seeing myself this way and acting like that, people *are* going to see that I'm not fully comfortable with myself. 

So, I'm going to be alright with myself, no matter where my center of gravity is. 

I'm not going to surround myself with environments that make me feel better about myself. I'm going to feel okay with myself.

I'm not entirely sure *how* I'm going to get there, but I know that I will, because I am nothing if not determined. 

An Important Question

I use formspring to answer questions that are posed by friends, readers, fans, whoever. Today, I checked my inbox and among some sexual questions that I didn't feel like answering was the following query:

Who are you really? 


At first glance, it's the simplest question possible. I'm Alex, duh. But it came at a poignant moment for me, and it had a positive influence on my thought processes for a while. It's one of the most important questions one can be asked or ask one's self and it's something that has been on my mind quite a bit recently. I've gone through a phase where I've been less than focused on being my best self. This isn't to say that I've been something other than myself, or that I've been bad or awful or something. But when I read my older writing, there's a difference. It isn't that I lost something; more that I misplaced it. At worst, I've lost a sense of focus. I've been withdrawn and going through some things recently, and I've started to come out the other side. I know that this is vague, but I'm alright with that.

To answer this question, I could point to my fetlife profile, or post a photo, or do a bunch of other things, but I think what I'll do is make a list of what I know to be true.

• I'm a thinking human being.
• I'm a woman.
• I'm smart.
• I enjoy writing, thinking, cooking, a variety of things that I find fun, submission, modeling and (of course) being spanked and I'm enhanced by these things.
• I am (at my best) a person of my choices and volition.
• I'm capable of doing a great many things.
• I'm not my body.
• I'm not other people's perceptions of me.
• I'm not who I used to be.
• I'm not my past, or a product of it.
• I'm not what society makes me.
• I'm not the people that I love.
• I am neither my feelings and emotions nor (at my best) a product of them.
• I'm not just one of the sides of me. I can't be shrunken down to being a cute girl or a bookish nerd or a spanko. I may present myself differently in different situations, but it doesn't change who or what I am.
• I'm a good person and a strong person, but these are not inherent traits. These are choices that I have to constantly make.
• I am (again, at my best) a person that I like and who is worth liking.

[I did not post this to formspring because it bothered me to post it in two places. I can be like that sometimes.]

WELL! Now that my deep stuff is out of the way, I'd like to direct your attention to my tumblr, where I post very not deep photos :P. Special thanks to The-Boss-of-Me, parttimelondoner, for teaching me basic Photoshop and for being the boss of me. <3

Submission Topic: Polyamory and Submission

When I started this blog, it was my intention to do a combination of writing about spanking, DD and D/s topics. I touch on the latter two every now and then, but they are rarely the primary focus on a post. I'm going to start trying to include a Submission Topic every week if I can. I always have a lot to say about it anyway. :)

So, here it goes!

For the entire time that I've been in my primary relationship, I've had submissive feelings and limited actual submissive behavior towards people besides my partner and Dominant. This has never been any kind of a problem. I'm mostly poly in all situations and Malignus is nearly perfectly poly. There are times when he's more comfortable with the idea of me exploring things with other people than I am. Because it was always natural and accepted for me to explore and talk about submission with other people, it seemed to follow that I eventually would enter into a second D/s dynamic. At present, Malignus has five submissives, and he manages that with few problems. So when scotchgrove and I realized that we worked quite well together in terms of D/s, we began to take the steps towards making that happen.

A lot of people were very surprised by this. Apparently having a lot of submissives is fairly normal, but a submissive having multiple Dominants is not. Thinking about this brought up a few interesting points.

The most obvious reason why having multiple Dominants might not work out smoothly is that there might be conflicting rules or instructions. The question that my friends have asked me the most when finding out how things are working for me now is "What do you do when they want you to do different things?" So far, this situation has come up rarely, almost never. There's usually a clear level of importance between two tasks: things with real world time limits have to come first, as do grossly more significant things. Unless something of those natures comes up, I take care of the things that I committed to first before committing to something else. If everything is equal, I tend to err on the side of Malignus' wishes because he invests more in me. He's there with me on the day to day and he's been giving me time, energy, love, affection, violence, care, education and more for over a year now.

This is system is really no different than the way that we balance social commitments in any other situation and is mostly based on common sense: if I'm working on research for Malignus and scothgrove wants to chat, I finish my work first. That's no different than what a responsible person would do if they were doing research for school and a friend from outside of a power exchange dynamic wanted to talk. If I'm hanging out with Malignus and scotchgrove needs to speak to me regarding something of importance, I talk to scotchgrove. The only difference is that I don't just do these things: I seek permission to do these things. That's also pretty easy and mostly just a way to be respectful. Because both Dominants are aware of these arrangements, they tend to be fine with things.

scotchgrove doesn't usually make rules for me because he's aware that those needs are already being met by my dynamic with Malignus. If he does, it's for things that I don't have rules about already. If both of them were to make a rule about the same thing, I'd talk to both of them to come up with something that worked for everyone involved. Basically, if everyone is on the same page, it works out really well.

There is, however, a reason why the idea of having multiple submissives makes more sense than the idea of having multiple Dominants does: that's the flow of power. This is a concept that has been kind of hard for me to articulate, but which I've been bouncing around in my head for a while. I made the following really shitty diagram in Paint:

As you can see, in the Top paradigm, each relationship flows away from the shared partner. This represents the fact that while time and energy are invested, the end result doesn't accumulate. In the bottom paradigm, all the energy is flowing onto the shared submissive. This represents the fact that the submissive is receiving things: instructions, assignments, rules, punishments, structure et cetera, from two different sources. Where it is very possible for a Dominant to become overwhelmed by GIVING too much, there's a very different mindset required to be open to RECEIVING an overwhelming amount of new information, material, concepts and other things. I think that this has a subconscious influence on how people view multiple partner relationships in terms of D/s.

I know this is one of my less articulate posts. I've been mixing my energy to a lot of places recently: preparing for my trip to Los Angeles, settling some emotional issues, getting parts of my home life that needed to be in order all squared away and planning some exciting new developments to my spanking life. I hope it made SOME sense to you none the less. What is your opinion on the difference between a submissive having two Dominants and a Dominant having two submissives? Did my graphic make ANY sense, or was I just screwing around in paint aimlessly? Post your thoughts in the comments section. :) 

Genetic Vs. Interest

The following is a piece entitled "Genetic vs. 'Interest'" which was written by my friend, Thursday Knight, and posted on fetlife. It raised several points that are important to me and that I wanted to add my thoughts on.

The day I opened up my fetlife account was on my 18th birthday. Throughout the internet, various websites had a new user of "Thursday Knight"--all of them spanking related.


I am a spanko; ever since the age of three years old I've had the desire to be spanked. While holding true to most spankos who can relate, I had all the signs. Anything spanking related in books or TV was a rare obsessive delight (the clock in Disney's Pinocchio, Benjamin Bunny, and countless other things), looking up the word "spanking" in the dictionary, getting the topic brought up among friends to find out if they had any personal stories, etc. etc. etc.


The thing is, I did not choose this condition. I did not choose to be sexually dysfunctional (and despite spanking being a very 'mild' sexual deviancy, it still is not 'normal'). Yet...what astounds me is that people do choose it.


Now, for the sake of whoever may be reading this, this is not an attack. Or even judgement. I am simply pointing out that there are many people on this website who choose to get into "the lifestyle".


From experience, I started typing in spanking searches into the internet when I was thirteen. Other people with sexual fetishes (note that a "fetish" is described as: a form of sexual desire in which gratification is linked to an abnormal degree to a particular object, item of clothing, part of the body, etc. [NOT] "it just turns me on") I would assume would do likewise. They would want to connect, find out more people who think like they do.


But besides the casual "bedroom partners", how do average people who want to "spice" up things, suddenly become "rope professionals" and "vampiric dominate daddys"? When they were growing up did they have a small interest and it grew? Or did they "decide" that this would be okay? What would possess someone to come up with the idea that people can come together and have parties where they'll tie each other up and eat snacks?


I'm not saying there is anything wrong with it, I am purely wondering where someone would come up with the notion.


Is it human nature to deviate from the norm? Are human minds just naturally perverse and therefore susceptible to the malleability of something new? They hear about something from a friend or on TV and realize that sounds fun?


Or is something genetic at play? Are those "vanillas" who will never even think a website like this, and perfectly happy too, every know (what we feel) they are missing?


Pretend your partner and you had a 'normal' relationship with very little concept of what you do now with each other, would that relationship still work? Would you think he is a lazy ass? That she is a needy attention-hog?


If these feelings are genetic (or at least a genetic disposition, in that our brains are pre-disposed to this sort of thinking) would they serve the purpose of balancing out our mental stability?


What makes people with an "interest" want to "choose" to be different in this way?


One last thought: Could you truly live without your kinky-doings and be happy? If someone said "You can be painlessly euthanized or live without ever doing your fetish/kinky thing ever again." Could you?


I, I could not.


Thursday's post resonated with me for a couple of reasons. First, she brought up an issue which I've often wondered about: why would anyone choose this? I'm also not attacking and I'm not pointing fingers. I don't think that there is anything wrong with choosing to join the lifestyle. I just don't see why one would. In fact, when I first started attending munches and other kink events in Los Angeles, it didn't occur to me that there would be people there who weren't "born with it" the way that Thursday and I (and I'm sure many of you) were. In fact, I operated under the assumption that the people I met who were into bondage were as excited when they saw a damsel in distress tied to the train tracks in a cartoon as Thursday and I were when we saw that Benjamin Bunny getting thrashed with a switch for his naughtiness in the picture book. Now, there *are* people who are bondage fetishists. I know one person who was involved in doing self bondage from a very young age indeed and several who always thought about being immobilized or secured in various ways. But many of the people who I've met who are into bondage, or D/s, or general impact play simply were told about it, gave it a shot and found it interesting. It sort of baffles me. There are people who choose this. They became curious about deviant behavior and decided that it was somehow worthwhile for them to engage in. Were they equally predestined to enjoy their lifestyle activities and simply unaware that they existed? Is one actually able to control their identity so much as to select something like this and make it his or her own? And to what end? I'm open about the fact that my involvement in the spanking and BDSM communities enriches my life, but I can't imagine that the lifestyle is inherently enriching. The growth, joy, development, relief et cetera that I gain from my activities seems to me to be based on fulfilling something which has always existed. It doesn't naturally follow that a person who developed without those early desires would have the same, or even a slightly similar, response to being exposed to the stimuli that I find valuable.

Part of the reason why I'm slightly taken aback by this is because I've always seen my spankophilia (if it can be called that because it isn't sexual) as, at worst, a deformity and, at best, some sort of social hindrance. I'm not ashamed of it anymore, but it has always been something which made my life more complicated. Like Thursday, I can't imagine myself being happy if I couldn't have spanking in my life. Given the choice, I'd sooner give up almost anything else. I'd go so far as to be prefer losing a couple of limbs over losing spanking. I don't want to say that I NEED to be spanked, but it's hard not to. At the very least, I need to have it in my life on some level. I don't ever NEED a spanking in a particular moment, but I truly don't know if I could have a satisfactory existence without it. Other kinksters who aren't spankos but like spanking want to be spanked or to spank others. In many ways, we require it. Requiring something brings along a boatload of things to work through and accept, fears, insecurities, difficulties et cetera. It also places a high value on something that can be very hard to find-- that is to say, a good spanking partner.

It's a lot of interesting stuff to think about, and it's territory that I don't often cover for fear of being offensive and making too many waves. So: what do you think?

On Being Spanked to Tears

It's not a secret: I cry from spankings a lot. There are videos of me crying available from Spanking Court, Assume the Positions Studios, and Lily Starr Spanking. I talk about it here all the time, too, and I've posted about it on various fetlife threads from time to time. So it isn't surprising that one of my friends sent me a message asking me for more insight into my ability to cry. This is the second time that I've been inspired to respond to a question in the form of a blog post, because my thoughts organized themselves so well that I figured that others might enjoy reading my insights as well.

There are several different ways in which a spanking can make me cry. I can break my crying during a spanking down into several categories:

*Crying fueled by regret for bad behavior.

This is one of the more common forms of crying from a spanking in general, and the psychology of it is very straight forward. This takes place during disciplinary spankings. In my opinion, if a spankee is in this mindset and that is not the intended atmosphere of the spanking, then something is wrong. Either the top has not communicated the intended purpose of the spanking effectively or the bottom is dwelling on previous or otherwise unaddressed bad behavior. This is the easiest way for me to cry during a spanking, although it is rarely ever particularly difficult.

The atmosphere of a disciplinary spanking keeps my mind focused on my wrong-doing and just how unenjoyable it is to be punished. This atmosphere makes me extremely vulnerable and therefore makes my experience of the spanking much more physically painful. For me, a spanking serves this purpose most effectively if it is delivered either very sternly or, in certain situations, harshly. What's the difference? To me, a "stern" delivery is very calm and controlled, with some level of formality, but unbendingly serious. A "harsh" delivery involves some expression of annoyance (as opposed to just displeasure) and is a bit "gruffer": there might be some raising of the voice or rougher shoving back into position. It's the difference between "Bare your bottom and get in position" and "get your pants down and get over my lap RIGHT NOW!" The latter is generally more effective if the offense which has earned me the punishment is related to my attitude, just because it's more jarring and it makes it much harder for me to keep feeling sorry for myself. :P

Either way, the creation of this atmosphere makes me vulnerable and receptive, and it makes me most contrite and regretful, and therefore brings me to tears very quickly.

*Crying fueled by stress relief/emotional release.


This is the kind of crying that happens when I get that feeling that I just need a good spanking. This happens when I feel like I've been keeping things inside myself, or I've been struggling hard with something, or life has been wearing me down. These spankings have always been most effective for me i they begin with sternness until I reach the point where I've begun to cry and then the tone becomes more affectionate. Again, this is about being vulnerable: in this case, the spanking is effective because I allow myself not to fight against it (or, if I cannot do such a thing on my own, to break me down) and instead use it to push everything out. I originally imagined that a stress relief style spanking would be calm and soothing, but I discovered with experience that it works best for me when it's merciless, hard and long. A good example of this sort of spanking can be found in the story told in the last couple of paragraphs of this post.

*Crying fueled by relief.

This is a different kind of relief than stress relief. It's relief that a long anticipated spanking is finally happening. This sort of tears is generated by a spanking that is usually very connecting, reaffirmative and filled with caring. Alternatively, these tears can be part of the reason I cry during a long awaited punishment. The point is, I'm moved to tears by the feeling that I'm back where I belong and that I've obtained something that I've long desired, or that some sort of waiting period has ended. My first spanking was the ultimate example of this: I was overcome with the most extreme relief I'd ever felt, since the burden of waiting for my first spanking was finally lifted from me. These tears are very happy, and filled with satisfaction.

Photo by Assume the Position Studios

*Crying fueled by submission or surrender.

Some bottoms talk about subspace- going off into some floaty, magical, trance-like, trippy state from getting a very hard beating which pushes them towards submission. They sink into the bed, they stop feeling pain, they float on endorphines, they get high, they can't talk properly...

This doesn't happen for me (although it did once). I'm a very cerebral person, and I'm uncomfortable letting go of my awareness. Instead, when I've been pushed to a place where I cease my fighting, I get to a point of submissive crying. It's a calm sort of sobbing where there's no urgency in the sound. I've given myself over to the spanking that I'm receiving and I have no will regarding when it will end. It's certainly not as exciting to talk about, or as filled with mystery and intrigue as traditionally described subspace is, but the land of my submission is just a place where I lie still and take a lot of hurt and cry about it. It probably sounds pretty pathetic to a listener, and it doesn't feel "good" in a traditional sense, but it's a very peaceful place where I feel incredibly safe and loved.

*Crying fueled by physical pain.


What's that?! It's kind of taboo in the spanking community to admit that crying happens because a spanking hurts, but for me, yeah, that happens. I know that the fact that it's a safe environment where I'm engaging consensually in something that I love and that I'm allowing to make me vulnerable plays a part in it, but even with amazing atmosphere and the best, most loving connection between me and my Top (so, when Malignus is spanking me), I'm going to get to crying much more quickly from a hard paddling than from a hand spanking. It's not like I cry because things hurt in my non-spanking life (except for the occasional migraine) so it's clearly not all about the physical pain, but I won't deny that a harder, faster paced, longer spanking (that is to say, one which hurts more) will be far, far more likely to bring me to tears.

The Nature of the Beast

Note- This post is kind of mushy and self-serving. I'm okay with this.

As I've mentioned before, I can't remember a time before I was obsessed with spanking. It was always there in the back of my mind and it felt like some sort of strange defect in me. There were times when I felt like it would ruin me. There were times when I felt like I needed to be institutionalized because of it. There were times when I wanted to kill myself over it. Dramatic much?

Now that I've met the most amazing man, made some of the best friends I've ever had and been part of one of the most positive communities I've ever been involved in because of spanking, it seems pretty stupid. I've talked before about my anxiety, but to most, I think I seem pretty well adjusted about my life in Spankingland. And I am. I love it. It's a source of positivity, joy, happiness, growth and relief.

That said, I must confess to feeling something that I know many other spankos either feel or have felt: shame.

Shame was a corner-stone of my upbringing. The Christian environment in which I was raised taught me that there was a particular way that God made humans and that deviation from that norm was sinful and shameful. My early rational mind believed that things should make sense. If something didn't make sense, there was probably something wrong with it. Unfortunately, my obsession with spanking didn't fit the way that I believed I was meant to perceive a "normal," godly individual, nor did it make any sense. 

I got over the God part. I rebelled against the idea of the social norm and preferred to simply be myself. I came to enjoy being a blatant and unabashed sinner. Still, I want to live in a world which makes sense. I want to understand the origins of my actions. I want to know who I am and why. When something is veiled from me, I become angry and frustrated. I taught myself never to accept "just because" as an answer to things. I want to know why I'm like this. I want to know what made me this way. Is it genetic? Is one of my parents secretly a spanko? Is it something I was exposed to when I was very young and before I had the ability to retain memories? Is it entirely without reason, some random fluke? I've long believed that knowing why I ended up a spanko would make being one easier for me.

The truth is, I can't know why, and knowing why wouldn't be useful to me anyway. It wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't make anything that feels wrong feel right. I, however, can do those things without any answers being required.

The origin of my affliction may be unknown, but the nature of the beast is not. 

I'm a spanko. I like to be spanked. I like baring my bottom and lying over a lap. I like the feeling of being bare and vulnerable. I like the spanking itself. Even when it's horrible, even when it's with an implement I hate, even when I struggle and have a hard time lying still. I like to be spanked until I cry. I like to have my thighs spanked. I like the feeling of submission, of giving up my will. I like to be spanked for fun. I like to laugh during a spanking. I like having someone in my life who will give me disciplinary spankings when I am not my best. I like having an opportunity to grow. I like being corrected. I like being put in the corner. It makes me feel safe and contemplative. I like being put there with my bottom bare after a spanking to remain in the feeling of vulnerability, gather my thoughts and get the most that I can from the experience. I like getting spanked with my female friends. I like being comforted after a spanking, a gentle hand rubbing my back or my sore bottom. I like waking up and still feeling sore from the night before. I like learning about myself as a submissive and striving to be better. I like being rewarded with a hard spanking that brings me to happy tears when I've done an excellent job. I like getting a hard smack on my thigh or bottom at random, just because he feels like it. I like being a vessel for sadism. I like spankings that relieve my stress. I like spankings that make me feel loved. I like spankings that hurt terribly. I like spankings that don't hurt quite as much. 

I've found a way to be happy with who I am. It doesn't matter why I am the person that I am. It only matters that I admit it and that I am going to force myself to stop feeling ashamed. Because you know what? You're here, too. You like it, too. You wouldn't be here, reading this, if you didn't like spanking: giving it, getting it, watching it, thinking about it. Whatever. There's a part of it that you like. That's okay. Maybe you were born with it, like me. Maybe this is the first time that spanking has ever crossed your mind. Maybe you've got some other kink, or you're mainly a BDSM person, and you're interested in spanking. I won't judge you. I won't judge myself, either. And if someone DOES know, if someone DOES have the ability to read my mind when I'm thinking about spanking in the grocery store, if someone IS mentioning it in vanilla conversation because they suspect something about me, then oh, well. There's nothing I can do about that. It's certainly not the worst thing in the world. If people don't like me for it, then there's nothing I can do about that, either. It won't be any different than the friends I lost for having a girlfriend. I'm not going to throw it anyone's face, but I don't see the point in being so afraid anymore. 

Really, I have nothing to be afraid of. Except the cane. And the lexan. Aaaaaaaaaaand pretty much anything on my thighs. ;)

Welcome Home!

Oh, right. I went away to my family's house for the holidays. Then I came back.
Good story!

I'm kidding, I'm kidding. There's more to the story than that!

Being with my family of origin is hard. My mother and I have had a difficult relationship for my entire life. Sometimes I just think I'll never go visit them again, but since my mother is in poor health and my oldest brother just passed away, I knew it was the right thing to do.

The visit was really stressful, though. My mother and I quarreled a lot, she didn't let me do anything, she said awkward things all the time (like asking me if I was saving it for marriage!) and I was reminded of all the reasons I left home at such a tender young age in the first place. Plus, I attended my brother's memorial service, which was extremely bittersweet. I had already found closure for myself, but it hurt to see so many other people suffering and there were instances of prejudice against the HIV positive expressed *during the service* which really boiled my blood.

There were also awkward spanko moments- my family members mainly bought me practical gifts, and practical gifts for a woman tend to be kitchen things where I come from. I got ANOTHER rubber spatula (this one did go in the kitchen, but it was still awkward) and I got another wooden spoon. I have a lot of wooden spoons. Malignus doesn't like me using them in the kitchen because he doesn't want them to absorb germs or something like that. Basically, I am pretty sure he just wants to keep them all for spanking me. Besides, the spoon I got from the family is a really beauty from a spanking perspective: nice, long handle, perfectly flat back, smooth, strong beech wood.

Yep: I'm aware that this is the most ridiculous photo of me I've ever posted to this blog!

Then there was the gift exchange with my cousin, who bought me a set of FIVE hairbrushes. My mom said "Oh good! Alex can really use those! I've bought more hairbrushes for that girl than anyone needs in a life time and yet they always end up lost or broken." Broken, yes, Mom. Into pieces. On my ass. But you don't need to know that!

Then there was the awkward conversation in which my surviving brother attempted to convince me that I should use a bathbrush in the shower because they feel really nice and offered to buy me one. No. Bathbrushes DO NOT feel really nice. They feel like death. Like every swat is taking minutes off my lifespan. I don't care how they feel in the shower: if it's in my shower, it's in my house and THAT'S BAD!

Finally, there were the little things: the fact that I notice awkward spanking related things EVERYWHERE and want to giggle or make an awkward face and can't in vanilla company:

I'm wearing these to get spanked sometime!

Beside all this, I had trouble sleeping and I really missed Malignus. It certainly made me appreciate just how wonderful my life here is, though. I'm able to truly be myself at all times and I'm with someone who loves me for exactly that, not for who I pretend to be or who I change myself into. That in and of itself is more than I ever dreamed of. Add in the fact that we have a lot of fun together, I get to cook and clean, and I get a good spanking almost every day and I'm made aware that I'm pretty much the luckiest girl in Spankingland.

Coming home on Tuesday to this was just lovely. There really aren't words for how nice it was. When I was a girl and I was obsessed with Roald Dahl's book, Boy, there was a section that I enjoyed that didn't have any beatings in it. This was where Dahl discussed the joy of going home from school for the summer holidays. I specifically remember him saying something along the lines of "The feeling is incredible and can't be understood except by someone who has lived in an oppressive environment and then gone back to a place of freedom. It was almost worth going away to school just to experience the joy of being away from it." I always liked imagining what that would be like: to leave my normal and unenjoyable childhood and go to a place of freedom. Leaving my family's home to go back to my new adult life reminded me of that. It's a very pleasant thing, getting to experience the stuff you've always wanted! :D

On Tuesday, after Malignus picked me up from the airport, we got a pizza and went home to watch the first two Rocky movies (which I'd never seen before, despite being a film aficionado.) After the second movie, it was late and I was tired, plus I still had a lot of residual stress from the past week built up in my system. I asked Malignus is he was going to spank me that night, since I usually go across his lap before going to bed, and he said "a little bit." I was kind of imagining a firm but not miserable hand-spanking based on that response. I was alright with that: I hadn't been spanked for nine whole days! Better ease back into it, right?

Then I saw him coming into the bedroom with my new spoon. He had swatted me with it earlier and it had made me howl. My stomach dropped. This reflected in a very sad look on my face. Malignus asked me if I was scared about how much the spanking would hurt and I replied that I was. "You should be," he said. He's very encouraging. :P

I bared my bottom and got in position over his lap and he asked me if I wanted a warm up. I gave the most heartfelt and earnest rendition of "Yes, please, Sir!" ever heard by man, I'm pretty sure. Warmups are kind of a luxury for me, and I hadn't really been expecting one, but the idea sounded so nice.

Then Malignus said "Too bad!" and started laying into me. Then I started howling. It would probably not have been a very pretty thing to listen to. The stupid thing was agonizingly painful and it kept falling with an extremely fast pacing. It hurt so much that I very quickly began to sob. The spanking just kept going, though, without any sign that the pace was slowing. He spanked me very thoroughly: as is usual, he didn't spare my thighs in the least, and this time he put considerable time and attention into beating my sit-spots. He eventually stopped with the spoon and spent a while spanking me firmly but much more slowly with his hand while my cries began to quiet. It took me a little bit after the spanking finished to stop crying, but my stress and tension had been replaced with a remarkable sense of calm and security. Laying over the lap of the man I love with a bruised, swollen bottom throbbing with pain, I felt like I had no reason to be anything but content and joyful. Very shortly thereafter, I lay in bed with my head resting on his chest and fell asleep.

Because I went directly to bed, I did not photograph my butt when it was properly marked, but I woke up looking like this:

My life rocks.

Spankoanxiety

I'm a pretty confident girl, right?

Back-tracking through the stories I've told on this blog, I've been photographed topless in Manhattan in the winter, done my first spanking video as a model, traveled to San Francisco to attend the Folsom Street Fair, shot with several other spanking production companies, gotten hot wax poured on me, a needle shoved into my body and cups full of suction on my back and moved across the country.

My image appears in various states of undress and bruisedness quite a few places on the internet. I'm perfectly acceptable showing a lot of sides of myself in photographic form.

Publicly, I'm as okay with being this girl:

As I am being this girl:

Or even sometimes this girl: 

So it gets hard for me to admit that sometimes, talking about things terrifies me. Sometimes I get a lot of anxiety. Well, you might say, that's normal. Everyone gets anxious from time to time. You're in a new place, at a new job, making new friends... of course you're going to get nervous about these things. 

The sad (for me) part is, those aren't the things that are making me anxious. Spanking is.

It isn't that I've gone away from spanking, or lost interest, or any of those strange things that supposedly happen to people from time to time. I've always had this feeling, ever since I was a little girl and I began thinking about spanking. The butterflies in my stomach. The shakiness in my hands when I think about it. The flush on my face when I say the word. The dumb, monotone voice that comes out of my mouth when I try to bring the topic of spanking up when it wasn't already, even when among people I trust the most. 

The anxiety reaches its peak when I'm in a situation where I might get spanked, and it increases in intensity as it becomes more and more obvious that a spanking is imminent. Generally speaking, though, the anxiety goes away simply by exiting the situation or, more enjoyably, by getting the spanking and having the release that's associated with it. The spanking hurts and more often than not makes me cry, and I get rid of all the anxiety which built up as I was anticipating it. 

This is the main reason that listening to someone else get a spanking makes me anxious (and why I tend to do dishes or bathe when someone else is getting a spanking so that I don't hear it): because the spanking is real and I have to face the reality of the fact that I'm a spanko, that this thing which sounds scary is the thing that I like and that this is all real. These are all things that I generally try to celebrate, but even with my happiness, just create a nervous, sick feeling in me. When it's someone else getting the spanking and not me, I don't get the release that goes along with it, and the stress just stays in my body. 

Despite the fact that I'm a spanking model, I can't really watch spanking videos. They make me too nervous and uncomfortable. Having it real and happening in front of me without any connection to me makes me feel scared and pathetic. When I've watched my own videos to try to learn what I'm doing well, or when I've watched videos to learn about the companies that I want to shoot with, I often end up peeking at the screen through my hands, like a little kid watching a horror movie. I almost always end up turning the sound down extremely low. 

Why don't I ever talk about this? Because I'm embarrassed by how embarrassed I am about spanking. Generally speaking, it's easier to just take a deep breath and talk about it than to admit that I have these insecurities. Besides, what kind of spanking model can't even say the word "spanking" when sitting alone in a house where all the residents are spankos who scene together, and spanking is so much a part of our daily life that the wooden spoons in the kitchen are marked with "Cooking only- no spanking!" What kind of person spends six years getting spanked with hairbrushes, yet when asking her roommate to borrow one refers to it as "the thing you use to brush hair" out of discomfort saying the word? I'm supposed to be a pro at asking for spankings, yet when I try to these days, my voice either cracks or gets all monotone and my eyes get big and probably very sad or desperate looking. Somedays, I sit around thinking about getting spanked for over an hour without mustering the courage to bring it up. Sometimes, I honestly believe that if I hadn't run into SF in the library and then creeped his stuff and discovered his spanko tendencies, that I would have died unspanked because I'd never get up the courage to find a partner, which seems pretty likely when you realize that I spent FIVE YEARS perving spanking sites before I made my first contribution to one.

Still, I've usually corrected my spankoanxiety with a simple trick: getting spanked. A good, hard spanking (and yes, I'm blushing as I type this) reminds me of all the things that I get out of a spanking, makes me feel safe and gives me a sense of belonging and gives me a channel for the stress that being a spanko causes me. There are other things that help, too: getting validation from the spanking community that I'm an accepted part of it and that they're all okay and therefore I'm okay has always helped. Being on fetlife, blogging and modeling have boosted my spankoconfidence immensely. 

But right now, I've been so anxious about spanking that I have a hard time getting through a blog post about it, which is just dumb. I'm not being judged by anyone, I'm having awesome spanking adventures and my life is wonderful. Like all things, the anxiety will come and go, I'm sure, until I figure out how to correct it entirely. In the mean time, I'll just be squaring my shoulders and being very glad that my readers can't see me blushing as I type this stuff. :D

Does anyone else have this problem? How do you deal with it? Do share. I could use tips :P

International AIDS Day

I know that there's been an interruption to my regularly scheduled posting recently. It's been a time consuming process getting adjusted to my new life, and I had a few difficult things happen which made the process of creating stability more difficult than it would previously have been. As a result, I withdrew from writing things for publication for a spell.

I've written very vaguely before about the presence of HIV/AIDS in my life. While my HIV status is negative, I have known people with HIV/AIDS and been very close to them for the entirety of my life.
Today is International AIDS Day. Since this day last year, two people I knew died of AIDS. First was a girl who I was not particularly close friends with, but who taught me a considerable amount in both life and death. You can read about the ending of her life here if you use fetlife.

A few weeks ago, while I was in the process of my cross-country move, my elder brother also died of AIDS. He became infected with HIV due to IV drug use when he was a teen and passed away a few months shy of his twenty eighth birthday. While his health had been touch and go for several years, he was in excellent health when I left Los Angeles. He went into the hospital due to excessive sleepiness and inability to stay awake while I was driving to Salt Lake City. I texted him that night with great concern and he told me that he was fine and would be home soon. By the next day, a viral infection had swept through his body and his weakened immune system could do nothing to defend against it. He was seen by a hospice nurse by the end of that night and passed away several days later.

I was able to have a final conversation with him while he was still conscious, during which he told me that he was alright with dying, that he loved me very much, and that he was proud of me for the woman I've become. I told him that he had always been a great source of inspiration for me and that he was one of the most admirable men I've known.

The past few weeks since his death have been extremely difficult for me because the death was so removed from me: I was unable to be with him when he ceased to exist or to see his body and his memorial service won't be held for another several months. It took me a lot of work to believe that he was really dead, to know it in my bones and be alright with it. I think I'm there now, and if not, I'm very nearly. I'm perky and happy and enjoying my life here, making sandwiches and getting spanked. I'm having fun with HeatherFeather and Malignus and making new friends in my new community. The world is full of potential right now. There's terror in the idea that my brother will never again be just a phone call away, but there's also happiness in the fact that he won't suffer from his horrible illness again and in the simple fact that I had the joy of knowing and loving him. He was ready to die and unafraid. So few get that privilege.

I've been keeping this information to myself to prevent it from seeming like I was seeking attention, to avoid platitudes of comfort and to simply not focus on the dark and the terrible, but today seemed like a good time to let everyone know.

Please remember to know your HIV status and to practice Universal Precaution when dealing with blood, semen, vaginal fluid, breast milk and other body fluids which may be tainted with one of the above (for example, saliva from a mouth with an open wound). Use clean needles and wrap it before you tap it. Seek medical attention if you believe that you've been exposed. Educate the people in your community about HIV prevention.

Additionally, remember to fight HIV, not people with HIV. There are a myriad of situations in which HIV is transmitted and it isn't a disease that suggests that someone is a bad person. Anyone can get HIV. It's hard to remember just what that means until you're burying someone you love.

I'm proud of the lives which were lived by my friends who have been killed by this disease despite their illness, and I have great hope for a future where medical advances and education lessen the impact that it has on our world.

Limits

I was talking with a friend about limits in preparation for Wednesday’s PTNG Discussion Social on limits, negotiation and consent. She asked me, seriously, if I personally knew what my limits are. Honestly, it was a hard question for me. I don’t like the idea of being labeled as a “hard player", despite the fact that I know I sometimes am one, but I know that a lot of my friends, especially my local friends, see me that way.  I’m certainly not one of those “no limits crazy people” that sometimes show up on fetlife, claiming they’d let their Dom do anything to them. I do have some sense of self preservation: it’s just less than a lot of other people's. I had to admit that there are some limits that I'm not sure of. I don’t mean what types of play or activity I am or am not comfortable with. I find that to be straight forward and easy to categorize. I do so like this:

Ethical Limits:

The following are things that I won’t do, even under duress, because I feel that they are ethically inappropriate. These limits are constant and universal.

* Play involving parties that do not or are unable to consent. This includes play involving minors, animals, the dead, the unconscious et cetera. 

* Play where the validity of consent is questionable. This includes people who are not mentally stable enough to give proper consent or those who have a track record of consenting to activities and then retroactively “removing” their consent to play the victim. I believe that consent must remain cut, dry and clear for a scene to function.

Solid (Unbending) Limits: 

I don’t like to use the word “never.” There was a time when I had “themes of bodily possession or belonging to another individual” on this list, and now belonging to Malignus is one of the greatest joys in my life. I’m always open to the idea that I could change dramatically in the future. That said, I can’t see myself ever doing these things if my life keeps going the way it is right now: 

* Sexual themes or contact in play. 

* Degradation or humiliation.

* Inserting anything into any of my orifices, including my mouth.

* The sharing of bodily substances other than my tears and blood.

* Contact with my sexual organs, including my breasts, of any sort during a scene.

* Religious, spiritual or occult themes in play. 

* Permanent bodily damage or transformation. 

* Consensual non-consent.

* Infantilism.

* Age-play where a character is younger than teenaged.

* High Protocol.

Hard Limits: 

These are things that I have absolutely no desire to ever do, but that I would engage in if sufficiently driven by submission and in a physically and emotionally safe environment. Those in bold carry significant emotional weight:

*Wet and Messy play, especially including food.

*Suction or vacuum play.

*Electrical play.

*Breath or choking play.

*Drowning or water-boarding scenes.

*Fire play (including fire cupping).

*Knife/ Sharp object play.

*Whipping and flogging (or any kind of impact play on the back).

*Needle play.

*Sensory deprivation.

*Medical play.

*Things involving feet.

*Tickling.

*Confinement.

Soft Limits:

These things aren’t my preference, but I’m willing to do them if they are useful in a particular situation or are for a video:

*Full nudity during a scene.

*Teenage ageplay.

*Bondage or restraints.

These are the limits that I understand. The ones that are lost on me are the limits of physical tolerance within a scene which is emotionally comfortable. There has to be an end to what I can take, right? If there is, it’s eluded me thus far. 

I’ve never reached the moment where a spanking becomes physically unbearable before (although I did once reach the point where I had to throw up because I had eaten way too much ice cream cake before the scene and another time because the emotional side of things wasn’t right for me). I’ve touched on the rumored “terminal hurt” –– the place where the body simply stops processing pain and things feel awesome, once, and it was an amazing experience. But I often hear people talk about thinking that they “can’t take any more” and that is something that I don’t feel.  I choose what I can endure. I have never seen a photo of a scene or created a scenario in my mind that I did not have full confidence that I could endure unless it was permanently damaging, against my other limits or far too dangerous. I’m not being cocky: I know what my abilities are, if I desire to use them. I’ve been severely injured in the past (from reasons not related to the scene!) in ways that the majority of people I interact with will never experience. I endured. I’m able to endure a considerable amount. What influences me, what creates my not yet understood limits, isn’t my ability: it’s my desire.

I’ve come to the conclusion that what I can take is based entirely on what I want to take, which makes the idea of the end point very flexible and sort of unnecessary. There’s romanticism in the idea of “going all the way” and finding the end of what I am willing to endure, the place where I no longer have any desire to continue. If I enjoy pushing myself, it would follow that I would enjoy pushing myself all the way. The problem with this is that it isn’t practical. It’s a nice fantasy, but it would involve an amount of force that would certainly be injurious and the satisfaction of proving what I can take wouldn’t be worth the effort and possible physical consequences to me. 

As it is, I take pleasure in engaging in play which is severe and “pushing myself” from time to time. It isn’t my usual thing. I don’t consider myself a particularly hard player in my daily life. When I do receive spankings that are particularly severe, I have the confidence of knowing that no matter what happens, it is something that I can take. I don’t need to have physical evidence to know that. I really only play to that level of intensity with Malignus, and I trust him entirely. Perhaps more importantly, I trust myself to be responsible for my own well-being if it comes down to it, and to endure appropriately if it does not.

Whether you’re seen by others as a hard player or not, do you know where you draw the line? Are you comfortable when others mark their limits in vastly different places than you do? I’ve often been uncomfortable talking about the level of play that I’m alright with because I fear that others will judge me negatively for it. Thoughts on that? 

Sex (or lack there of) and Spanking!

“I find it curious that you refuse to mix your kink with sexual activity. I understand being able to enjoy them apart from each other, but I would think that the two together would bring more pleasure. It makes me wonder exactly what sensations you get from spanking? Is it a physical pleasure or is it something more emotional?” 

I got this message in my fetlife inbox while I was at Folsom Street Fair, and while I read it, I didn’t have time to respond to it. Honestly, it’s a question I get asked very frequently in different forms. I started to write a response to the message today, and I realized that it was something worth sharing with everyone. People often ask me why I don’t mix kink and sex. They want to know what I get out of it if not sexual gratification. Sometimes, they try to convince me that if I’d just try having a sexual scene, I’d like it. If nothing else, now I can just respond to people who ask me that with a link ;).

The question “Why isn’t spanking sexual to you?” is as basic and unanswerable as “Why do you like spanking?” I don’t know why. It’s one of the only situations where I find “It’s just the way I am” to be a satisfactory answer. As I mentioned in my earlier posts, spanking has pretty much always been there in the back of my mind. Likewise, spanking was never sexual. I experimented with trying to get sexual gratification from spanking fantasies when I first began to explore my body sexually. I hope that by binding the urge to be spanked to the sexual urge, I’d be able to find some kind of physical relief. Needless to say, it didn’t work. It made me feel dirty and uncomfortable. 

Eventually, I came to realize that I have two parallel drives: one for sex and one for spanking. Both fill similar needs: the need to feel physically close to someone, to share bodily contact, to be vulnerable with someone I trust. Despite those similarities, they just don’t ever mix or cross. I never want them to. The idea of it squicks me out on the deepest of levels. Please also note that spanking is the older and stronger drive. I developed an interest in being spanked when I was probably about two. I did not develop a (hypothetical) interest in sharing sexuality with others until I was about eleven. 

I have a sexuality. I like relating to people sexually. Once in a while, I get an emotional connection out of sex. Other times, it’s just fun and physically enjoyable. Despite my deep involvement in the kink community, I’m extremely vanilla in the bedroom. Dominance in bed turns me off. Submission in bed turns me off. Blindfolds? No. Handcuffs? No. A smack on the ass while having sex? Turn off. Whipped cream or flavored lube? Gross. To me, getting crazy in the bedroom involves doing it in a position other than missionary or woman on top. 

Why am I like this? Who knows. I just am. Why is this relevant? Because it isn’t just spanking that I don’t want to mix with sex, it’s pretty much everything. I’m happiest sexually when my sex acts are pure and unadulterated. Add-ons don’t make it seem more fantastic, they make it seem diluted and are distracting to me. 

The argument that people often use when talking about sex and spanking as going well together is that if I enjoy one, and I enjoy the other, wouldn’t it then follow that I’d enjoy them together? 

It’s a fallacy to say that two things that are enjoyed can be better enjoyed together. I enjoy kittens a lot. I enjoy sex. I feel EXTREMELY uncomfortable if someone talks about sex and (real, feline) kittens at the same time. That’s the exact way I feel about spanking and sex. I like them both. I just like them both not to touch. 

There was a time when I would have dismissed the question of what I get out of a spanking if not sexual pleasure with “If you’re a spanko, you get it. If you aren’t, you never will.” I’m learning that it doesn’t have to be that way. I’m constantly struck by how similar many hard-wired (or, if you dislike that word, early discovering) spankos' stories are. We were all doing a lot of the same stuff and feeling a lot of the same things independently, without ever knowing that other people like us existed. Still, we experience things differently despite our commonality. I appreciate receiving disciplinary spankings: some spankos do not. I have a strong element of submission in my approach to being spanked: there are quite a few spankos who prefer snark, bratting, resistance and eventual surrender and/or consensual non consent. I don’t mix spanking and sex: a lot of spankos do. I think it’s a cop out to say “spankos will get me.” It’s very likely they will: it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t explain my feelings. On the other hand, while I find it challenging, I’ve been recently finding it rewarding to try and explain the spanko experience to people from other kink communities. Just like my thoughts on Leather and the Old and New Guard traditions changed wildly just based on a few conversations at Folsom Street, I have the ability to explain myself in a way that allows others to understand. I’m not required to: no one is entitled to an explanation (and it annoys me if someone acts like he or she is). I want to. 

I get a lot out of spanking. I enjoy the physical side of it from a non-masochistic perspective. I like the endorphins. I like the adrenaline. I like the physical vulnerability. I like the physical intimacy. I almost always find an element of submission in a spanking, and I enjoy that, too. As far as the emotional and mental go, I can get pretty much anything from a spanking depending on the Top and the atmosphere. There are some fairly constant things, though. One is feeling of celebrating who I am and who I’ve always wanted to be: engaging in something that has been part of who I wanted to be for most of my life with someone who is having a similar experience is really wonderful. 

Another is the feeling of belonging. When Malignus spanks me, I feel a deep and wonderful sense of belonging to him as well as with him, but in all spanking play, I feel like I belong in the spanking itself. This is something that Dana Kane brought up to me at Spanking Court the other day: she said that after watching me get my final spanking (the one that lead to tears almost immediately) she was struck by how obvious it was in everything from my body language to my breathing that I was doing something that was part of who I am. 

I almost always feel very vulnerable. This is a common theme across various types of bottoms in the larger BDSM scene. Vulnerability is a very nice thing when it is in a safe situation. Spankings allow me to let go of the world and my worries and just be. I know a spanking is going to hurt, and I'm okay with that. There's a beautiful sense of peace in that. 

 Finally, in order for a spanking to be enjoyable to me, I need to get the feeling that the top is getting *something* out of it. Either he or she has to be having fun or fulfilling an emotional need or enjoying indulging in sadism, or perhaps something else. Part of what makes a spanking enjoyable to me is the knowledge that the person who is spanking me is glad to be doing it. This is part of what makes arbitrary spankings so enjoyable to me: I know that I'm being spanked because that is what the Top desires. Some of the most satisfying moments in my spanking life have been the times when Malignus has laughed with sadistic joy when spanking me. I love how much he loves to do what he does. 

My motivations for engaging in spanking without sex are simultaneously complex and very simple. To look at it from the very simple perspective, it can all be reduced to the fact that it just works for me. The beautiful thing about kink is that there's no right or wrong way to do it (as long as it's consensual). 

A Spanko on Folsom Street

As I mentioned in my last post, I headed up to Folsom Street Fair last weekend with three of my friends from the Los Angeles scene. It was kind of a spur of the moment thing, but I’m very glad that I ended up going. For those who are not familiar, Folsom Street Fair is the world’s largest BDSM gathering and is held every year in San Francisco. It has a very heavy Leather focus and is largely (but by no means exclusively) attended by gay men. I was warned in advance that San Francisco’s kink scene in general, and especially the fair, had a much stronger presence of Old Guard practices and high protocol. \

In order to explain why attending this event was a rather big step for me, there are a few things that need to be established first. I identify as a spanko, and I didn’t really see Spankingland as being a subset of the BDSM community. I’ve always viewed it as a similar but parallel community that often gets lumped together with BDSM due to said similarities. At my worst, I can get downright snobby about the differences between spankos and “regular” kinksters. I’ve often felt slightly out of place in the general kink community. My move to Los Angeles and my involvement in the scene here, however, changed some of these feelings. I discovered that not only did I have a place within the scene, but I was able to become a group leader and event organizer. I even went so far as to get myself involved in local Leather politics on the side of female submissives with male Dominants. Despite these things, I still felt very ill at ease around anything stemming directly from the Old Guard tradition. It’s a tradition that was founded around something very specific which has nothing to do with me. Protocol has always felt to me like it was trying to force the wide world of kink into a tiny, black leather box. I want my relationships, my experience and what I participate in my community to be my own, with everything tailored to my needs, desires and comforts.

Still, no matter what other feelings exist, I love the people I’ve become close to through the scene in Los Angeles. Whenever I’ve felt like an outsider, or like I don’t truly belong, the people have kept me coming back. I headed up to Folsom mostly because of the people: I wanted to have an adventure with my friends. In a way, though, it was a quest for better understanding of the larger kink community and whether or not I belong within it. 

We had a good time driving from Los Angeles to San Francisco. We had fast food, we chatted, we had a passionate sing-along rendition of “Bohemian Rhapsody” and we honked the horn all the way through every tunnel. We rolled into San Francisco after dark and checked into our hotel, then showered and got ready to go to The Citadel, one of their local Play-Spaces. We met up with a friend’s (scene) Daddy and Mommy and headed over with them. 

I’ve only played in BDSM Play-Spaces a handful of times, and I’ve never played anywhere that allowed sexual contact, so seeing the amount of straight out sex that was happening at The Citadel made me slightly uncomfortable. It isn’t that I’m any stranger to sex, it’s simply that sex and kink simply do not mix for me. My brain kept coming up with error messages as I observed a latex clad Mistress pegging a man in a sex swing right next to a man whipping a nude girl in high heels. Eventually, though, I got more comfortable, although I don’t think I would ever be comfortable being spanked in a setting like that. The dim lighting, the fancy, intimidating looking bondage furniture and the industrial soundtrack were cool, but they certainly didn’t “do it” for me. 

None of us really ended up playing at The Citadel, but it was interesting to get to observe another city’s scene. Aside from the sex, it really didn’t seem that different than what I’ve observed at Play-Spaces in Los Angeles. There seemed to be a pretty even mix of men and women, and I didn’t feel any different attitude towards protocol or tradition. Maybe, it occurred to me, I was worrying about nothing. We got back to the hotel fairly late and I was too sleepy to go with my friends to Denny’s, so I went up to the room and fairly immediately fell asleep. I woke up later to eat the french toast they brought back for me with my hands, then fell immediately back to sleep. I love sleeping.

It was a gray day at first.

The next morning, we got up, spent a while getting dressed and then headed down to the fair. On our way over, we stopped at the store Mr. S Leather. Let me tell you: “unacceptable” does not even begin to cover my feelings towards the implements they sell there. They had metal canes, paddles covered in corse sandpaper, paddles made entirely of some kind of awful, dense rubber that made my rubber “running track” paddle (which is up there on the list of things that make me cry) look positively snuggly and things that they called “slappers” but I’d call “excessive force for riot control.” I also got to handle something that I’ve long considered “unacceptable”: a wooden paddle with a piece of tire tread set inside of it. I left there with a strange set of warm and affectionate feelings towards all of my implements ;). 

Upon entering the fair itself, I felt rather uncomfortable by the variety of people representing their various niches that surrounded me. There were a ton of gay leathermen, naked people, people in medieval garb, furries, ponyboys and girls, those in corsets, those in latex... the list went on and on. While at first I found myself looking around to see if there might be even one other spanko in the crowd, after I got more comfortable with my surroundings I came to an interesting conclusion: there were no two people in this crowd who had exactly the same kink experience or desires. The community was a fragmented group of people who were all okay with each other. There were people from Old Guard Leather groups next to young women with pigtails and their boobs out. There was a shibari booth just down the way from a group into puppy play. There was a free HIV testing clinic next to a booth about barebacking it. 

There was even a girl dressed like this :P

There was an incredible variety of vendors there. There were corsets and jock straps and fur tails and butt plugs. There were solid metal paddles and rubber canes that could take (if I remember properly) 32,000 pounds of force. There were wooden paddles that I wouldn't bother buying because one scene would leave them in pieces. There was even a t-shirt that was appropriate for me:

I think it's on the back so it can be read while I'm over a lap, where I belong :D

I also suspended my sense of self preservation for a moment and bought this unacceptable thing:

I mean, seriously, that's like, what a panda eats. It just feels dull when tested but after the lag is full of ache and bite. Have you seen how thick that is? Is that even legal? Why do I DO these things to myself? Also, my face is amazing in that photo. I just need to point that out. 

What’s more important, when I wandered off on my own part-way through the day, I was able to have one on one conversations about the history of the SoMa (or “South of the Slot”) scene with a number of older men who had been around for a long time. I found it a great honor that they would choose to share their oral history (please, no puns!) with a young girl from a very different niche than them. I found my feelings of prejudice practically melting away and my respect for what all of us do growing. Folsom Street Fair taught me that there is no right and wrong in the community as long as it doesn’t harm anyone and everyone gives consent. I always knew this in my mind, I always believed this for myself, but I feel like the community validated this for me. The Spanking Community is my home, but I feel very OK with my home being a subgroup of a big, crazy scene full of all types of people and activities. 

I’ve long felt spite about the fact that women were not included in the scene for a very long time and that prejudices against them still exists in some Old Guard circles. I expressed this to an aging man that I met at one of the quieter booths when he asked me about how my experience was as a young woman in a place where there are still a few “Men Only” signs. What he said almost brought tears to my eyes. He said:

“I regret the way we treated the women, especially the dykes, early on, but it’s true: we didn’t make the scene for everyone. We did it for ourselves. We did it because it was in our blood. We did it to create the first place where we could be free and safe. We did it to protect ourselves. We did it for love and passion. We did it because we had to. Now that everything is said and done, I want nothing more than for everyone to do the same thing for themselves. Do what you have to do to be happy, but for God’s sake, don’t get AIDS.” (This is paraphrasing. I did not tape record any of the conversations I had during this hour or so that I spent exploring and asking questions, since I didn’t really plan on taking oral history, but I really wish I had and I intend to next year.) 

I showed the man my bandage from where I had just been given a rapid HIV/Hep screening and told him that I tested negative. I saw in his eyes the pain of being a survivor when your friends are dead or dying from a horrible illness. I wondered about the people he was thinking of as his eyes glazed over for a second. I, too, thought of the people I’ve lost to AIDS already and those that I’ve been slowly losing over the years. 

I know it is off-topic, but it is extremely important to me. Know your HIV status. Practice Universal Precaution. Teach your friends how to stay negative. Test even if you don’t think you have any risk factors, especially if you play in public spaces. Those men in our community that died of AIDS in the 80’s and 90’s (including the philosopher Foucault, who I am in love with on an intellectual level) simply did not have any way of knowing what they were up against. There was no research. There was no education. With the information, prevention strategies and prenatal treatment options that we have now, there is no reason for anyone new to be infected. We have the power to let education spread more quickly than the virus. 

When I finished these conversations, I felt taken aback and very introspective. I didn’t talk to anyone about them until today: I came back to my friends and kept what I’d been doing to myself until I had time to process it. I then had some fun messing around with awesome people at the SoCal Shibari booth, then my friend’s daddy took us to get Indian food and introduced me to Mulligatawny soup, thus changing my life forever. Seriously, it was the best thing I ever ate. I ate most of it, even though it was supposed to be for sharing >_<.  Then we helped pack up the our friends’ booth and headed home. The drive home always feels a lot longer than the trip there, but we got into a lot of important and frank conversations about our lives and histories. I got home feeling too tired to move, but the experience was one of the most educational ones I’ve ever had. It’s a beautiful thing to observe your own mind opening.