Kinky Van Winkle awakes to a birthday

Being housebound -- especially with no television -- makes time often feel as warped as a fun house mirror. There are the short, fat moments bursting with life: listening to a spring downpour splatter against the balcony railing or smelling lavender oil amidst the silky texture of the warm bath drawn by my homecare worker or A. down on one knee next to my bed, ring in hand. There are also the moments stretched out agonizingly long like a rope of pulled silly putty: gritting my teeth through the jarring brightness of the overhead light turned on so my homecare worker or GP can see whatever it is I see with my cat eyes or a searing, inexplicable physics of pain reminding me that there are 84,600 seconds in a day and I've only made it through 57,952 of them.

Mostly, however, time is a naughty sprite who is mischievously always just beyond my grasp (and if I could catch it, I'd give it a damn good thrashing). Because I move and think slowly these days, I mindlessly assume that time moves at the same pace, despite the fact that I'm reminded of just how much faster time moves than I do every afternoon at 3 pm-ish when I finally sit down to breakfast (or "brunner" as I like to call it) and wonder where on earth the 2-3 hours since I got up have gone. Because I'm not out and about, I'm often far removed from the rhythms of normal life. Without the ubiquitous Muzak or store displays it only feels like Christmas for the actually day of Christmas. When I was asked who and what I voted for a few days after the 2012 presidential election, I found that my first thought was there was an election recently?

Then there are the moments when I'm made aware of just what a vicious little bitch time has been. Like the day -- was it a year ago or more already? -- when I was actually feeling randy and plunked myself down in the middle of the spankosphere to spend a few minutes reading my favorite spanking blogs only to find that many had folded. Relationships had broken up. The date on a post I'd swear I had just read a few months earlier said it was three years ago (er...probably four now). It was a very Rip Van Winkle sort of moment -- especially so as I'm literally asleep for up to 12-13 hours a day. The reality of how much time has passed, how much of my life has been squandered in this bedroom triggered a tsunami of grief and rage that quickly drowned whatever mojo I had.

This phenomenon is not limited to my reading other blogs. Amidst a stream of Nanny Bea and other spanking story plots running through my mind lately that had me digging through my archives, I discovered that I wrote my first Nanny Bea story in 2006 (I kept looking at the date stamp certain that I was misreading 2008 as 2006). I also realized that today would be the 10th birthday of Natty's Spanking Blog.  Imagine that. A whole fucking decade. That's a quarter of my entire life. And I'm not even spankable for the birthday spanking. ::pout::

I remember that night when I began this blog, sitting on a still bruised and abraised backside at my table-desk in the little dining area of my campus apartment. I had just attended my first BDSM event and was giddy as hell. The writer in me, of course, wanted to write about it, to attempt -- essayer a la Montaigne (albeit not nearly as articulately)* -- to put into words my thoughts and experiences of the subject matter that took up so much real estate in my brain. Not that that particular post had much essayer-ing going on. Skimming it now, it reads like a 21-year-old's diary entry. But the post before that -- "My Natty Moods" -- is closer to what I wanted to do with this blog (as well as take advantage of a free place to park the stories and essays I had already written at that point). What the blog became is a mixture of both. A place to do some essayer-ing and a journal where I dished the details of my kinky sex life to my kinky pals.

There's not much kinky left to my sex life these days -- or sex, for that matter. I wish I could say things were better. That I'm all better. But for the most part, 2014 has been a pretty shitty year. A few changes this summer have given me enough improvement to write this post (I'll find out at what cost over the next few days, though the sore throat I've already got does not bode well). Yet I'm hopeful (delusional?) that the improvement will stick so that I can hang around. After four years away (even if it feels like it's only been a few months), I am more than ready to wander back to into the spankosphere. But mostly as a reader at this point (although, yes, there are some potential Nanny Bea projects forthcoming along with some other posts). Except so many of the blogs I used to like to read have closed.

Which brings me to this question: what current spanking blogs would you recommend? Are there many thoughtful ones left? Given that this Kinky Van Winkle isn't able to spend a lot of time online, which blogs are the must-read ones and why? They don't necessarily have to be bloggers who post every day or even every week (in fact, the less they post, the better -- for me, at least) but rather writers (though they can be picture-based/Tumblers too) who make me think. Or wet. And you get a gold star if they do both.

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*I've always thought it was cool that Montaigne called his new writing style "essai" or "attempt" from the French verb essayer, to try or attempt. And he does read a bit like a late 16th-century blogger. 

Why does it have to hurt so much?

Do you ever find yourself, the night after a spanking, thinking that spanking really hurt. Can I have more please?

Last night I got spanked at bedtime. It was the first day of my new schedule, and I failed pretty appallingly. Instead of only being on the computer for three hours, I think it was well over five (I blame the Israeli government for that too!). Instead of taking breaks after every one of those hours, I completely disregarded them. I totally forgot to lay down for one rest period, much less for the three 15-minute periods I was supposed to. I did remember to do some yoga and physical therapy, but forgot my meditation and QiGong. And, of course, I was late to bed -- seven minutes past the grace period.

In short, I blew it.

So A. administered the ruler* after pulling down my jammie bottoms while I buried my face in my pillows. Quite severely too. At one point I thought he was going to break it. Needless to say, it hurt. A lot.

But upon waking up this morning (yes, it was really in the AM too - 11:30!), all I could think of was how much I really want a good, long spell over his knee. I just wish it didn't have to hurt so much. Except, of course, if it didn't hurt, I wouldn't feel very satisfied.

Why does it have to work like that?
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*This ruler is no namby-pamby love-pat stick. It's 24-inches and stings like a motherfucker.

2010: No More Mr. Nice A.

I got my first spanking of the decade this afternoon. Laying across my bed with the phone on speaker, A. had me consider some New Year's Resolutions with a ping pong paddle and clothesbrush handy.

None of my resolutions were particularly original: take an hour-long rest each day, get to bed on time, do a better job of taking breaks from the computer.

What was novel, however, was A. setting specific and severe punishments should I forsake my resolutions. Like 60 (!) strokes with the clothesbrush for each time I neglect my daily rest period. And one stroke for each minute I'm late to bed (it's not unheard for my tardiness to exceed two hours). He has yet to decide about the computer time, but I'm expecting it to be perfectly dreadful.

Of course, he had to remind me what those strokes would feel like should (when?) I merit them. After making me warm up with the ping pong paddle, I got multiple rounds of 12 strokes with the clothesbrush, not to mention periods of simply whacking until he told me to stop. I assure you, dear reader, there was much pouting on this side of the phone line. And both my arm and bottom remain a bit tender.

With this new get-tough-on-Natty policy, I foresee a year of grave suffering for my backside. A year of arduous sitting, sojourns to the corner, and maybe even lines or worse. (I'm too embarrassed to think about A. attempting anything of a colonic nature...) 

And a year for more stories. I've got a new Nanny Bea story scheduled for Monday. Fingers-crossed, my writing head will stick around for a more productive literary spell.

Kinky twitter

The good folks at Tweet Cloud have made a handy list of the top words in my tweets over the last month. A nice mix of the banal and the kinky, wouldn't you say?

Hang on

A few days ago I was reading the (non-kink) blog of a fellow Portlander with the title "Hanging Blog Syndrome." I immediately recognized the malady. Despite having my shiny new Macbook for almost a month now (thank you again, dear friends who donated it!), you can almost hear the creaking of this poor blog as it hangs forlornly in cyberspace.

My blogging is always rather meager when A. is here -- as is his productivity also. Two people sharing a 400sq foot studio for an uninterrupted two and a half months is not particularly conducive to introspective composition.

And, of course, that chronic illness I'm always whining about makes writing* difficult when my brain has turned to cream of wheat and I'm too weak to sit up in bed, drag my fingers across a keyboard and input all the thoughts I've had during the hour upon hour of laying in bed (as has been the case off and on these last few months).  You have no idea how jealous I am of those of you who can blog every day or even every week. And even more jealous of those of you who get to read all those brilliant blogs (like this new one from Queen of the commenters, Indy).

If I could write via mere thought, my hanging blog syndrome would be a thing of the past. Though the brevity and immediacy of Twitter has made reporting fresh spankings and random pervy thoughts less onerous than blogging. I suspect you will continue to find me Twittering my kinkiness more than I blog it.

But A. is leaving on Thursday. Bad for cuddles and spanking (among other things) yet more promising for blogging, as is the recent return of my writing head. Just in time to write about the birthday spanking that I'm sure to get later this evening.

My British A. is still adjusting to the whole concept of birthday spanking. He has suggested that because I didn't get my birthday spanking on my birthday last year, it didn't count and should be added to this year's spanking. But...but...hang on here. This could just get silly rather quickly. Do we add all the years I didn't get a birthday spanking? Er...maybe I shouldn't be giving him ideas.

So I appeal to you, oh sacred jury of the spankosphere, oh International Court of Correction.** Am I not right that a birthday spanking given -- regardless of whether it's on the actual birthday or not -- means I have fulfilled my birthday spanking debt to the universe?

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*Not to mention spanking and sex. We never have gotten to our Rules of the Lashes game. And I was chagrined to note last night after bathing that I think I've only been clean shaven down there twice the entire time A. has been here. So wrong.

**I have been warned that the Court of A. is a higher authority than the International Court of Correction. Though you all could help set precedent, no?

Too much wood

"Oh you stupid cow," A. cried out from behind his laptop the other day.

A few weeks back, he had sent an email to a publisher along with a synopsis of the book he had just finished as well as the book itself. Two weeks later the publisher's contact replied asking if his book was similar to a couple of other books coming out on the same topic. A. responded that no, his book dealt with different material (something she would have known had she merely bothered to read his original email). After another two weeks, she replied again and asked if he could send her a synopsis.

"Her name is Michelle, so maybe I ought to spank you for her inability to read her email," A. said as he sat down on the bed next to me. "It would make me feel better."

"Don't you have enough reasons to spank me?" I asked.

There are plenty of spankings on the agenda now that he's here. There's the small matter of my past schedules that have yet to be addressed. I was also seven minutes late for my school day the other day before canceling it because I was too worn out from cramming for the test I was suppose to take (I forgot how good at procrastinating I am) -- not to mention spanking would be part of the school game anyway. I believe there is another spanking planned, but I can't think of it at the moment.

"Yes but it's a bit like firewood, isn't it?" he quipped. "You may be all sorted for the winter with a stack of wood in the garage (pronounced "GAIR-idge"), but you're always on the lookout for that next felled tree."

Yep. A girl can never get too much wood.

The perfect body for three-minute porn

Last year A. requested I make a few sexy videos of myself for his birthday including both dominant and submissive themes. Eager to grant my beloved's birthday wish, I set about creating story lines and writing scripts for the three minutes of video my camera will shoot.

I did so with a muggy dread at seeing my body in all its fullness and folds on camera, peppered with carbuncles, cellulite and bruises in their multicolored stages of healing -- so very unsexy when they aren't on my backside. The video of me as a slave in which I was completely naked was -- and remains -- the most difficult for me to watch. However upon checking myself out in the mirror when I was dressed up in a black lace bra, black stockings, and black garter belt for my dominatrix character, I was surprised to find myself thinking that I looked, well...hot. Neither was I adverse to watching myself in this costume on video.*

For one of only a few times in my life there was symmetry between my body and the construct. Between the ideal depicted in popular culture, in this case the full-figured dominatrix, and what I was trying to attain in my imagination. It was then I realized that one of the reasons it has been so hard for me to accept my body over the years has been that as someone who has lived much of my imaginary (and sexual) life as a little girl, seeing a fleshy woman with mountainous breasts and lavish hips in the mirror has always been a source of tremendous dissonance.

It's not that my body is devoid of "little" characteristics. I'm 5' tall. My feet can fit into shoes as small as size 5 1/2 if they're wide enough. The fingers on those miniature stretchy gloves are often still too long when fitted onto my tiny hands. And the hair stylist I used to go to referred to my hair as "baby hair" because it's so thin it slides right through "adult-sized" barrettes.

However I did not have the body of a child for much of my childhood. I can remember watching Annie as a nine-year-old, with Aileen Quinn dressed in dainty cream and navy sailor suits and perky royal blue rompers with puffed pants and wanting terribly to dress like that. To look like that. Except I would have looked laughable in them. Despite being the same age as Aileen/"Annie," I had finally resigned to wearing a bra that year as my C-cup-sized-breasts could not longer be allowed to hang about. A few months ago my grandma presented me with a picture of my 11th birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. I suddenly understood why strangers were so shocked when I told them how old I was. In a my black and white flowered dress with the collar dipping down to breasts bulging against the cotton fabric, I would have sworn I was in my mid-20s.

Being a woman who is sexually submissive is about being small. Easily overpowered and dominated. You do not see many tall, fat submissives in BDSM porn. Not only is there the cultural aesthetic favoring the thin, but large women also take up too much space with estrogen-rich fat that the male dominant should be filling with testosterone, muscle, and patriarchal authority.

Yes, I'd like to see porn with more fat -- and tall -- women playing submissive characters along with their traditional roles as dominatrices. Though if I'm honest, I know I'm being more than a little hypocritical as I personally would not feel comfortable putting my own body on film for more than my lover to see. It may be that there are spanking porn producers out there who are more open to various body shapes and sizes but simply do not have many larger women auditioning.

I suppose I could say I have the perfect body for a switch. I'm short enough that my feet dangle above the floor when I'm over his knee and I have enough weight to throw around as the demanding domme. The perfect body for my dearest to both pet and worship. The perfect body for three-minute porn just for A.

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*Needless to say, neither was A. He was quite pleased with all three.

Your potty mouth has a point

The word fuck never crossed my lips until I got sick. Until I got vertigo, to be exact. I had just started my first grown-up (i.e. non academic) job in June 2000. I even had my own cubicle and business cards. Then I woke up the day after Independence Day with everything spinning. When the doctor diagnosed me with labyrinthitis, telling me there was nothing that he could do and I just had to wait up to 6 weeks for it to leave on its own, I walked to the bus stop across the street from my clinic and let out a torrent of Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

Turns out, it may have been a good coping mechanism. Indeed, this study shows that swearing actually can help reduce the intensity of pain -- something else that increased a great deal once I got sick. And needless to say, I swear like a sailor now. Though, according to the psychologist who did the study, the more you swear, the less effective it may be.

So now you have a very good excuse the next time you yell out a fuck! or a shit! during a particularly painful beating. I mean, it's scientific evidence!

A new, more substantive post about body size and kink is forthcoming. Illness and other events have conspired to limit my blogging of late, but not my thinking. Hopefully I'll be sharing some of those thoughts I've been itching to blog about in the next day or so.

And there are only a few more days left in the Natty's Spanking Blog Fifth Anniversary contest. I'd so love it if you'd stop by and help me celebrate my half a decade of blogging!

Five fantasies I'd like to forget

There are some spanking fantasies that have been with me for decades and are still as powerful as the day they first emerged from my psyche.

Like a medieval monastery fantasy I dreamed up during my sophomore year in high school that is woefully inaccurate historically, but still makes an appearance some nights when the lights are out (and begs to be written down). Come to think of it, there were a number of medieval fantasies that I had during high school -- all of which I still enjoy to this day.

But there are some fantasies I had when I was younger and less politically aware that make me cringe now. Or were even embarrassing at the time but my spanko imagination couldn't help itself. Below are five fantasies I'd like to forget:

1. Binyamin Netanyahu

You have to appreciate my non-kink life to understand how embarrassing this one is. Prior to becoming ill, I was an academic who studied an aspect of the Israel/Palestine conflict and at one point in grad school protested in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington chanting "Netanyahu hey hey hey, how many kids did you kill today?!." My politics have changed substantially from 8-9th grade when I was a good little Evangelical Republican who woke up at 6am during summer vacation to swoon over Ollie North at the Iran-Contra hearings (though, oddly enough, I don't remember having spanking fantasies about him).

The fantasy I had about Netanyahu went as follows: I'd be in Jerusalem studying...something (you must indulge me regarding specifics as this was a fantasy from over two decades ago). For reasons that are utterly lost on me now, I'd end up amnesiacal in front of the Netanyahu residence where they would take me in and I'd become their adopted daughter and he'd be the strict daddy. I have some vague memory of doing something naughty that merited a severe spanking, but I'm afraid I can't remember exactly what it was (being out late maybe?).

So there. That is my most bizarre and embarrassing fantasy ever. Ever.

2. Mu'ammar al-Qadhaafi

This one is a very close second as Qadhaafi is the kookiest damn "Leader and Guide of the Revolution" ever to grace the League of Arab States. But it was 1986 and we'd just bombed Libya and I'd heard about how his adopted daughter had been killed. The idea that he had adopted a daughter -- and was mourning her loss -- gave him a sort of "caring daddy" image. Yet I was also a devout Evangelical girl with martyr fantasies. Combine devoted patriarch with cruel Oriental sheikh and a fantasy emerged where I was captured and forced to renounce my faith. When I refused, I was beaten severely. However I was able to finally win him over with my sensitive attention to his grief. It filled many a night with warm, tingling feelings I didn't understand; I just knew I kind of liked them.

Though I wish it might have been a real Oriental sheikh rather than some loony, flamboyant, wannabe Maoist.

3. Ronald Reagan

Again this was during my Republican youth and is a bit convoluted. It starts with a story that involves a crusty, stern grandfather and generous big brother who goes off to war and dies. This story would then be bought by Hollywood and I would be cast as his errant granddaughter (who would be getting spanked, of course) and Ronald Reagan, deciding to do a bit more acting after leaving the Oval Office, as the grandfather.

Not only is this fantasy utterly ridiculous, but as a pinko commie liberal (actually I'm too left wing to even be a liberal) the idea of being spanked by a guy who beat protesters, was economically reckless, subverted the Constitution to fund death squads, and dissociated Americans from the very government they comprise (to name just a few of my problems with his presidency) makes me wince a bit now.

4. A College Group Pastor

I have fantasized about almost every single pastor I've ever had save for a few. However one of the college group pastors I had was a guy I had very little respect for as a person (he was arrogant, thick, and manipulative), and when I fantasized about him spanking me, I couldn't help but feel a bit dirty. He had small children and we were Baptists so the topic of spanking was sprinkled throughout conversation, which invariably led me to imagine him spanking me for various misdeeds. When he left his wife and kids to run off with a girl from our college group a few years later (actually both of the college pastors I had went on to do this), I felt even dirtier.

5. Professor and Skipper from "Gilligan's Island":

I couldn't have been older than six, but might have been as young as five. It's not so much that I'm terribly embarrassed about who I was fantasizing about. They aren't your typical strict daddy stereotypes, but they can certainly work in a spanking fantasy. It's that my enthusiasm for this fantasy to be realized led me to tell some kids at the playground I was actually going to be on "Gilligan's Island," which was especially difficult given that the show was no longer being filmed. It only took me another year or so before I was old enough to understand what an ass I'd made of myself with the neighbor kids.

Unusual fantasies that I'm not necessarily ashamed of but are, admittedly, weird:

Supreme Court Justice David Souter: He was a single man who spent his nights alone reading law texts when George H.W. Bush appointed him, giving him an Atticus Finch sort of aura. The fact that he moved to the left over the years with me made that aura even stronger.

Uncle Jesse from the "Dukes of Hazzard": I was seven. He threatened to give Bo and Luke a whipping. I think I even thought up a whole fantasy but can't remember it now.

John Sager: When I was in sixth grade I went through a phase where I was obsessed with all things related to Marcus and Narcissa Whitman. In reading about them, I also read a lot about the Sager orphans they adopted, the oldest of whom was John, who had to parent his younger siblings on the Oregon Trail until they reached the Whitman Mission. In one story I read, he gave one of his younger sisters a spanking when she got out of bed to play while she was sick -- not to mention was spanked himself in that book if I remember correctly (I should also note the book was so historically inaccurate it might as well have been fiction). Needless to say, I was in love, albeit with someone who had died 140 years earlier.

A father ant: In fourth grade I wrote a seven page story about a family of ants with a father who was so real in my mind that I imagined being his naughty little girl ant. I'm not even exactly sure how one ant would spank another ant.

So there you have it, dear reader. As if getting spanked isn't embarrassing enough, I've now outed my very active but remarkably strange imagination.

oOo

And don't forget the 5th blogiversary contest continues. Please come help me celebrate my half decade of blogging about spanking.

Putting me in my place

I've been having the same fantasy for months now. It's a fairly straight forward one: a punishment that begins with A. sending me to the corner to think about what I've done while he gets out the implements and straight-backed chair.

Initially I spent my reveries working out the details of going to the corner, draping myself over his lap, being whacked with the ping pong paddle (or rubber paddle -- implements that cause only surface bruising), squirming and kicking, crying. And of course, because it's fantasy, the spanking gets more and more severe. Involves more implements. An extra sojourn to the corner. Time over pillows on the bed.

However after awhile I noticed my focus had shifted to the dialogue. Each night I drifted off to sleep concentrating on what would be said and in what order. Editing the language to make it more stern, more infantalizing, more cheeky or more desperate. And the sharper it got, the more tingly things got between my legs.

Eventually I'd honed the conversation to a point where I simply had to write it down. Remembering it each night was getting to be a pain. It's nothing particularly clever or original. And the language isn't an exact match of what A. and I really sound like (though it's remarkably close). But it does articulate the place I imagine going emotionally and physically. And the more child-like I'm treated, the hotter it gets for me.

oOo

"Tell me again why you are going to be punished?"

"Because I didn't go to bed when I was supposed to..."

"And how late were you?"

"Just three minutes on Tuesday. But, um, an hour and a half on Friday and an hour and forty minutes on Saturday."

"And why were you up so late on those two nights?"

"Cause, um, I was online..."

"Did you forget to set the alarm?"

"No, Sir. I just kept thinking that I only needed a few more minutes."

"So you disregarded the alarm?"

"No. I hit the snooze button cause I thought I just needed a few more minutes."

"How many times did you hit the snooze button?"

"Um...uh...um...7 or 8 times I think."

"Seven or eight times?! That sounds a lot like disregarding the alarm to me."

"No. I just...I mean, I didn't mean to. I wasn't intending to disregard it."

"How do you do something 7 or 8 times without intending to?"

"I...I, um, I...I dunno...I just...I didn't mean to..."

"It would not be a good idea to argue with me, young lady."

"I'm not arguing, Sir. Just...explaining how -- "

"--You're arguing."

I pause. And scowl. And purse my lips tightly together in an effort to choke back the reasonable explanation/cheeky argument dying to come out. And look down at the carpet.

"Yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir."

"Look at me." A. grabs my chin and pushes it up so that my eyes meet his. "Now explain again, why is it important for you to go to bed on time?"

"Cause I feel more sick if I don't get enough sleep."

"That's right. Little girls who are sick need to rest. And when was the last time I had to punish you for going to bed late?"

"Last week." Sigh.

"Tsk, tsk. So clearly last week's punishment wasn't hard enough."

"It was hard enough. I just -- "

"-- Are you arguing with me again?"

I'm not sure how to answer this question. If I say "yes, I am arguing," it almost sounds defiant. But if I say no, well, that would definitely be arguing even more. So I just hang my head, purse my lips, and look at the carpet. A. grabs my chin and snaps it up again.

"If I have to warn you about arguing with me one more time, you're going to be holding a bar of soap in your mouth during your punishment, is that clear?"

"Yes, Sir."

"So, was last week's punishment severe enough?"

"No, Sir," I say just above a whisper.

"No, it wasn't. And what happens to naughty little girls who continually miss their bedtimes – not to mention are cheeky and contrary?"

"They get punished."

"And how do they get punished?"

"They get spanked."

"That's right. They have their jimjams and knickers taken down, are taken over the knee and get their backsides tanned. Lift up your shirt." (In another variation of this fantasy I'm wearing my pink dress and have to lift that up rather than my pajama top.)

"Please don't spank me! Please! I promise I'll go to bed on time this week," I plead even as I lift up my top.

"Oh, you'll be going to bed on time after I get through with you." He grabs hold of my pajama bottoms. "Let's get these down." With a quick tug, they are swimming around my ankles. "Right. Over my lap, please." Without hesitation, but without a great deal of speed either, I step to his right side and drape myself over his lap. "This, I'm afraid, is really going to hurt," he declares while stroking my hair.

There's no warm up. Using the ping pong paddle, he peppers my fleshy panty-clad cheeks with hard, sharp whacks all the while deploring my cheekiness and bemoaning my poor choices. The pain is searing and surprising. I start to panic somewhat as he turns to lamenting the less than dignified position in which I find myself.

"How very shameful, having someone take down your jimjam bottoms and spank you like a child. Just disgraceful." He keeps whacking with a fast, heavy hand. "And since your last spanking was so clearly a waste of time, I'm going to make sure I get every last inch of your bottom and thighs with this paddle in the hope that I won't have to do it again any time soon." That's the cue for him to stop just long enough to pull my panties in between my cheeks giving him a bare canvass to paint with the ping pong paddle.

And paint he does. There's no counting. Just minute after agonizing minute of hot pain accompanying a stern lecture about how disappointing it is to see that I've chosen to waste my precious energy on roaming the internet late into the night rather than getting the sleep I need to get stronger. About my shocking lack of deference when being addressed. When I'm asked a question I'm to answer respectfully and without quarreling. About how this penchant for arguing demonstrates the same unrelenting willfulness that keeps me from going to bed when I should, or keeps me on the computer for longer than I should be, or frittering away my energy when I should be saving it. And if it takes all afternoon, he's going to beat that willfulness out of me.

oOo

Of course, when I did get spanked over the phone with the ping pong paddle earlier this week for exceeding my allotted time online (which I'm doing again at this very moment, ugh!), I'd forgotten just how much that damn thing hurts.

"It never seems to hurt as much in the fantasy," I pouted as my backside smarted.

A., who too has experienced the dissonance between beatings in fantasy and reality, concurred.

"No. No it doesn't."

All about the blows

Slapping isn't just good for the ass. Sometimes it's exquisite right across the face, as Angela Connor details in this delectable essay over at Nerve. I particularly loved the following passage:

Peter asked about the sex, and I told him it was sweet, but I wanted to talk about the blows. And he asked the questions friends ask to make sure you're being honest with yourself.

"I'm just wondering," he said, "why isn't it abuse?"

Without thinking, I gave my most honest answer: "Because it feels good."

Talking about kinky sex can feel so strange with vanillas. Intercourse is nice and all, but it's the blows, the implements, the stern looks that are so much more interesting. And feel so good.

More fun than spanking porn?

Saturday evening I watched the 1961 film version of Lorraine Hansberry's remarkable play, A Raisin in the Sun.* It was a fascinating movie to watch at this moment in the African-American experience, as well as American history as a whole. I was savoring Hansberry's complex characters and incisive dialogue when it happened: somebody mentioned spanking.

"Go on in there and get ready for your beating," says Ruth to son Travis after he returns from wandering around the streets at night. It takes several minutes for the action in the living room to finish so that Ruth can head into her bedroom where Travis has been sent to prepare for his beating, despite the fact that Ruth "sure don't feel like whipping nobody" that night.

You know how you're reading a book or watching a movie and someone mentions spanking but it's only a mention? There is no actual spanking or if there is, it's only alluded to. And that allusion will keep you going for days as you ponder the logistics. At least that's the way it is for me.

What does getting ready for a beating entail? What position will he be spanked in? With what?

This also happened to me last summer when I was feeling well enough to finally read A Hundred Years of Solitude.** Colonel Aureliano Buendia is trying his Conservative enemy (albeit a very friendly enemy), General Moncada, (who is mother has grown rather fond of) in a kangaroo court-martial. Along with several other women, Aureliano's mother, Ursula, pleads with the court to have mercy on Moncada and delivers a stern warning about what could happend if that mercy is not granted:

"But don't forget that as long as God gives us life we will still be mothers and no matter how revolutionary you may be, we have the right to pull down your pants and give you a whipping at the first sign of disrespect."

Yet as Colonel Aureliano Buendia tells Moncada after he's been condemned to the firing squad, "I'm not shooting you. It's the revolution that is shooting you." And as revolutions are hard to spank, Ursula ends up whipping no one. Well, except her son Arcadio a bit earlier in the story when he becomes a complete despot, but it was more in a "Jesus in the temple whipping the money-changers" sort of way rather than a maternal punishment.

At any rate, Ursula's courtroom warning had me entranced for days as I tried to picture this tiny, if strong 60-70ish year-old woman taking down the pants of a legendary revolutionary and spanking him. And I found myself asking many of the same questions I did on Saturday night about the spanking reference in A Raisin in the Sun.

Sometimes I think those references are more fun and provide more view for the imagination than spanking porn.

_____________
* A Raisin in the Sun: The Unfilmed Original Screenplay, Lorraine Hansberry, New York: Plume, 1991, p. 127.

**One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, New York: Avon, 1970, p. 153

Horror vacui

I'm trying to remember when A. first used the term vacuum to describe the absence of kink in this studio apartment. Sometime last month I think. After my birthday when the spanking that should have been wasn't.

It is natural to abhor vacuums, or so Aristotle said. Never mind that later physicists from Ibn al Haytham and al Jazari to Torricelli and Pascal concluded that nature was rather comfortable with her vacuums. And that since then we have found all sorts of ways to put nature's vacuums to good use cleaning carpets and lighting homes and sealing food and providing television.

Aristotle was merely wrong about the subject. It is not nature that abhors a vacuum but us. We cannot tolerate vacuums of power or money. Empty is almost always bad. Our very bodies will bloat and die after mere minutes in a vacuum. We need oxygen. Stuff. Someone. Spanking.

For weeks the libidinal pressure in this space dropped while the outside atmosphere remained saturated in sex, sucking up my nocturnal spanking fantasies -- the sedatives that put me to sleep each night. I had to switch my guided imagery techniques from imagining I'm a naughty girl having my pajama bottoms taken down and my bottom soundly spanked to imagining I'm releasing spent qi out of my fingers and feet. Low pressure indeed.

There is, of course, no such thing as a perfect vacuum, spanking or otherwise. A few weeks back I bent A. over the futon and filled our ephemeral vacuum with a cane and a riding crop and a strap and purples welts and red skin.

Apparently I did not fill it enough.

"Maybe next time you'll give me a proper beating," A. sneered later adding a handful of other smart-ass comments that I can't remember now. I never knew how adept he is at bratting for it. Like the bird in Boyle's airpump losing oxygen in the vacuum, he was losing the good sense to shut the hell up. A week or so later when I beat him again, he had to safeword out.

There was also the belated birthday spanking that I thought I was ready for. A. used the strap lightly and told me to tell him when the pain level got to 8 ½ or above. Except that once the strapping started, the pain clogged my brain to the point that I couldn't even think to say "stop!" I spent 36 strokes trying to evaluate whether my pain, or the strokes, or this pain compared to past strokes was at 8 ½ and if the strap would become more tolerable or if I could just bear a few more strokes or...

"Why didn't you tell me to stop?" he asked with the sort of worry that is both caring and cross as I sobbed and shivered in his arms.

The week before last I made it through a brief spanking with the ruler. On the bed over lots of pillows. With just enough sting to make me feel a little bit naughty and punished.

And last night he used the ruler on my backside again. Softly at first. Slowly building the sting so that I was soon squeaking and yelping. With his free hand he dipped his finger in my cunt. Circled my clit with it. Shoved his thumb up my ass.

"I think your ass is over due being violated," he whispered with a leer. "In fact, I think what you need is a giant piece of ginger up your ass."

"Like the ginger I bought a Limbo's last week?"

I gave him that look. The Do Me Now look.

A. made off to the kitchen. Returned a few minutes later and pulled my cheeks apart. Shoved a large chunk of peeled ginger into my hole and twisted it around inside. Left it there while the juices seeped into my sensitive tissues. Grabbed the ruler and spanked me several more times. Turned on the Miracle Massager and thrust the vibrating head against my cunt.

In vacuo gave way to in plenum. Lovely, wonderful plenum.

How the hell did I end up here?

I've been thinking over the last few weeks about what an amazing transformation I made in a mere decade.

In 1994, I was living with a family from my Baptist church while going to university. I had never had a drop of alcohol or even been kissed. I was teaching Children's Church, directing a weekly children's Bible memorization program, and leading music for my church college group in addition to my studies.

By 2004, not only had I been laid and drunk, I started writing a sex blog about spanking. Sure, I was still going to church, but I was Byzantine Catholic (and a dubious one at that by that point).

Have any of you, as you've started blogging or going to spanking parties wondered, how the hell did I end up here? Have you found that in embracing your sexuality, it has taken you places you never expected to go? Do you ever wonder who this new sexual deviant is, or asked the inverse question, who was that uptight, repressed person I used to be?

Needless to say, I've been rather pensive lately. It's probably why I haven't been posting as much. I mean, I've actually been journaling...in private.

But A. gets in tomorrow night, and I know we have at least one play session that we want to blog about coming up on Friday night (you know, health permitting), so hopefully my meditative mood will disperse and I'll have more juicy posts forthcoming.

People I could hang out with

My senior year of college I was invited to be part of a national student delegation to the country of Kuwait. A week or so before I received that invitation, I found out I had been accepted to graduate school at Georgetown University with a full tuition scholarship. As our delegation was meeting in Washington DC for a week of briefings before heading to Kuwait, I went a few days earlier to visit the place I assumed I would be spending the next several years of my life.

The waiting room for my graduate program was lined with cherrywood paneling and upholstered in arabesque print. I remember worrying that my wet, squishy tennis shoes would somehow dirty the place after walking in from the April rain. I stayed the night with a recent alum from my hole-in-the-wall state university, but the next day headed to a posh DC hotel where we student delegates were to stay during the Washington leg of our journey.

It was the first time I'd ever hailed a cab. And I was surprised when a guy in a uniform picked up my suitcase as I checked in. I'd never been to a hotel with a bell hop before. The nicest place I'd ever stayed before that was at a Red Lion with a bunch of girls from my church youth group when we attended a winter youth festival. The bell hop led me to the room, opened the door, set my luggage on a rack, opened the curtains, and then stood at the door awkwardly for a few seconds. Was I supposed to tip him? Or was that just something they did on television but not in real life? The bell hop had mercy on me and left quickly. I felt terribly out of place in this new, fancy world I'd found myself in. And I tell you the truth, dear reader, I broke out into tears as I sat on the immaculate bed.

That is how I feel when I read most erotica.

But I didn't realize it until I read Jacqueline Applebee's story "What I do for my pain." When blogger friend Pandora mentioned that Ms. Applebee's erotica included disabled characters, I pictured blond girls dressed in hip retro dresses sitting in specially-designed wheelchairs -- you know, people with real disabilities, as opposed to someone like me with amorphous pain disorders and controversial multi-systemic diseases.

I was so wrong.

There was no mention of stylish clothes or hip apartments in the city or parties with canapes or exotic furniture where two people with perfect bodies have perfectly aligned sex.

No, instead I was met with a character who bumps into her lover's boob in bed. Who has enough flesh that it can be kneaded. Who wants a tattoo that looks like a sunflower. And whose disability was chronic period pain.

See, I'm clumsy in bed too (among other places). And have plenty of flesh to kneed. I don't know that I can get a tattoo now that I'm on anticoagulants, but if I were to ever get one, it'd probably be something cheery like a sunflower too. And boy do I know what chronic period pain is like as everyone of my periods since I started having them when I was ten years old have been dreadful.

Sometimes it’s a constant cracking against the back of my spine, sometimes it’s a top note sung by a soprano, but held against my groin for sixteen hours. Medication doesn’t seem to help, and heaven knows I’ve tried most of the alternatives.

It sounds a bit silly, but I started crying a little when I read that bit. I just never hear anybody ever talk about the ordeal that painful periods can be -- you know, outside of pamphlets from the doctor's office. And I certainly haven't see someone validate that experience by making it the primary conflict in a story. But it wasn't just a story, it was a damn sexy story.

As I continued reading, I found that this was a character I could so see myself hanging out with. Exchanging medical horror stories or sharing the alternative that has finally worked for me (Red Raspberry leaf tea, as impossible as that may be to believe, considering how exquisite the pain).

And that, that was when it suddenly dawned on me that I don't ever imagine myself hanging out with the characters in the erotica I generally read. Part of that comes down to just how effective Ms. Applebee is in creating such realistic characters. But a lot of it is that characters in erotica intimidate the hell out of me.

I'm not stylish. I'm five feet tall and fat. The last pieces of clothing I bought were a sensible white Playtex bra on sale this month online, a red shirt and a pair of jeans on sale at Walmart about a year ago, and a t-shirt from the Goodwill several months before that. I only own three pairs of shoes (that accommodate my orthotics). So, you know, no skin tight dresses or several hundred dollar fuck me shoes here.

I do live in a studio downtown, but I live in HUD housing with seniors and the disabled which sorta takes away any sort of glamour from the whole living in the city thing. And my part of the city is where the meth freaks and pimps hang out, though personally, I like the color they add to the neighborhood.

Being on Food Stamps means that canapes are never on the menu here, though I do make the best chocolate chip cookies ever. And Two-Buck-Chuck is about the only wine you'll find in my kitchen -- and then only when A. is here because I can't really drink much wine anymore.

Erotica is all about fantasy and so it is understandable that it will reflect what is most perfect in our society. Writing -- erotica or otherwise -- requires a certain level of education to both attain the skills necessary to create worlds on paper (or computer), as well as the ability to think originally about topics, particularly ones that are mostly taboo. And most of those who get that education come from a base socio-economic level and higher. It's hard to think and write about sex when, say, you just barely finished high school and you're trying to figure out how to pay the rent on your trailer despite working four jobs (a common predicament in my family).

I remember years ago listening to essayist Richard Rodriguez on the NewsHour talk about how little poverty makes it into our literature (aside from the Bohemian sort). That we needed people to write about the experience of being poor in the same way that writers such as Toni Morrison have talked about the experience of being African-American or how he had written about being Latino.

I remember thinking at the time, hey, I could do that. I know what it's like to grow up poor. Thanks to an illness which has left me incapable of doing any job in the national economy (as the vocational expert testified at my disability hearing), I still get to know what it's like to be poor.

And if Jacqueline Applebee can write hot, sexy erotica about chronic period pain, well damnit, I should be writing hot, sexy erotica about poor, fat, sick people.

You know, people I could totally hang out with...

"People we've always wanted to be": The Spanked virtual book tour continues

The Spanked virtual book tour has been winding its way through the sex blogosphere during August and now I get the pleasure of beginning the Bonus days of September (i.e. I didn't get my sick, lazy ass in gear to answer Ms. Bussel's email in a timely manner -- something experienced by many of you who have emailed me -- and all the proper days were taken by the time I did).

For those of you who haven't come across the book in question through a book review or interview on any of the thirty-one blogs before me, the tour has been promoting the recently published anthology Spanked: Red-Cheeked Erotica by Rachel Kramer Bussel, a long-time erotica writer, cupcake-lover extraordinaire, host of In the Flesh erotic reading series, former columnist for Village Voice, and occasional writer for publications such as Alternet and the Huffington Post ('cause sex is political whether you think it is or not). You can purchase the book at fine online bookstores like Amazon, or my local bookstore, Powells.


Yes, it's Labor Day. And many of you are at the Shadowlane Party (:::sigh::: someday...). But for those of you who are actually reading today, lemme tell ya a shocking little secret.

I've never bought any erotica before.

In fact, I haven't even really read all that much, at least not the sort that involves sex and not just spanking.

When Spanked arrived, I suddenly started thinking about practical things like, where do I put it on my book shelves? Most books I like to display with pride throughout my studio apartment, but this one, well, what if my nieces and nephew see it? Or my priest when he comes to visit and give me communion? However, eventually I put those questions on hold and actually started reading it.

What I've come to realize is that the reason I've never bought any erotica before is that I don't really like reading about other people having sex. In the words of the narrator of the first story in Spanked, "the curious paradox about spanking sex [is] that the vagina is almost an afterthought." Spanking is all about the ass for me. All about the pain. The submission. The endorphines. The negotiated infantilization. I do like sex. Its intimacy. The achy fullness and the electrical satisfaction of the orgasm. But it's just physical. It never has the power to touch so much of me like spanking does.

So the ubiquity of hard cocks and wet cunts left me rather bored at times. And as someone who lives considerably below the poverty level, I couldn't help but be conscious of class. That the characters in these stories were white, urban and mostly financially comfortable.

Yet there was a remarkable diversity among those for whom such a straightforward act -- spanking -- plays a prominent role in the expression of their sexuality. Submissive males hungry to please a mistress or just to get a spanking from a stranger -- especially if she happens to be a sexy bookstore owner. Bratty males who then turn the tables and take the formally self-righteous female over his knee. Lesbian women using a spanking to even the score or eat that forbidden fruit of hot but straight female roommate. Gay men watching a straight woman spanking a straight male. And, of course, stern boyfriends and co-workers giving spankings to naughty girls in the bedroom, or office, or kitchen.

And while I may not have connected with the explicit sexuality or socio-economic status of the characters, there was plenty I did connect with. Like body image issues, such as experienced by the spankee in Rick Roberts's story, which "just added to [her] vulnerable beauty." The sheer play of spanking in Allison Tyler's story in which a Betty Crocker-wannabe is tied up in plastic wrap and spanked with several kitchen implements (I can hardly cook or bake without A. getting handsy). What it's like to be a strong woman who is worth "waxing and washing for" such as those in Sage Vivant's story. The confusion of where the sex ends and real life begins and how dangerous that line can feel such as Andy Ohio's protagonist finds. The thrill of kink and vanilla life intersecting like we see in Elizabeth Coldwell's story. The fun of participating in Usenet spanking newsgroups, as "Pink Cheeks" knows in Fiona Locke's story and how that increases exponentially when we meet our virtual friends in the flesh. The naughtiness of sneaking a quick spank and fuck in Thomas S. Roche's story while guests wait downstairs. How disturbing our fantasies can be when they bleed into taboos like incest, as Kaitlyn realizes in Teresa Noelle Roberts's story, and the compartmentalization we engage in to cope with our discomfort. Desperately wanting to cry from a spanking, as Dee desires in Rachel Kramer Bussel's story, only to discover that you should be very careful indeed what you wish for.

"...I know what my body can do, but I want to see what we can do together, if we can take spanking somewhere it's never gone before, if we can make it propel us into a new place where we lose ourselves only to find people we've always wanted to be."

Bussel's heroine whispers this to her partner when she asks him to make her cry, but it's really what every couple who engages in spanking seeks. We spank and get spanked to go somewhere we've never gone before and find the people we've always wanted to be -- naughty school girls and cunt whores, or just raw, sex-hungry beings looking to spice things up during a hearty fuck. In Spanked we get a glimpse of those various people and places we can be and go. It may take us to places that are profoundly uncomfortable or make us people we don't even recognize. But in the end we just may arrive at a place more pleasurable than we ever imagined.

Follow the Virtual Tour tomorrow as it heads over to Kristina Wright for another Bonus day.

A top ten most unconventional spanking implements list

Watching Rachel Kramer Bussel's video trailer for her new anthology, Spanked, inspired me to make a list of the top ten most unusual implements with which I've been spanked. For the comprehensive list of what I've been spanked with, see this post.

1. Leek. This one definitely gets the first prize. I mean, how many spanking stories have you read with a bratty girl or boy on the business end of a leek? It was so unusual it even inspired poetry.
   
2. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Vol. 2: Histories. The power of words took on a whole new meaning when a spanko friend years back looked up to my book shelf, saw this and decided to use it on my backside. Very thuddy, as you might imagine.
   
3. Frying pan. For awhile there, my post about A. spanking me with a frying pan was routinely ranked among the top ten sites on Google about Domestic Discipline. Go figure.
   
4. Dog lead/leash. Ah, when young (or not so young) spanko lovers first meet, they have a tendency to start viewing just about anything as a possible implement. Like A. and I during our very first time together in England. While walking his brother's dogs one day at the park, A. got bored with throwing the ball to the dogs and decided to see what their rope leashes would be like on my bottom. You know, out in public. Shameless, I tell ya.
   
5. Sjambok. You can buy them at Adam and Gillian's so they are actual bona fide spanking implements. But even they list them under "unusual."
   
6. Fly swatter. The business end of a fly swatter makes some spanking sense, but many years ago a friend also decided to try the wire handle. Ouch! It left me with some nice black and blue welts. More recently, A. also tried out a completely plastic one I bought at the grocery store on my ass. Pieces broke off the top of it with the very first swat.
   
7. Wire hanger. Joan Crawford made them a famous, albeit unorthodox spanking implement and my bottom has not been spared their use. The first spanko guy I dated gave me a dose of wire when I started laughing after he fell out of his chair. Alas, it didn't stop the giggles in me.
8. Remote Control. I've heard of other spankos experimenting with remote controls also. I mean, you're on the couch with your naughty boy or girl. The remote is on the table in front of you. It's sorta flat... Though having been spanked with one, I can't say they're all that impressive as implements go.
9. Sandal. The British have a long tradition of hitting kids with slippers or gym shoes (A. would know). So why not a sandal? They're flat and whippy...
10. Cutting board. What can I say? It was paddle-shaped. A. had to spank me with it. Unfortunately it wasn't exactly made to strike nice big bottoms and broke after a swat or two. It comes in at number ten because it's probably been the first spanking implement bought at Wal-Mart by many a spanko, just behind electrical cords -- which I've also been spanked with.
    

I imagine you, dear reader, might have a few unconventional spanking implements to add to the list. And you know how much I love comments...

Fat girls are kinky too

Not quite two weeks ago while I was shaving, I smiled to myself as I thought about a post from Mija several weeks back where she talked about how she scheduled brazil waxes around pelvic exams "in case the lack of hair caused questions." I smiled because I normally do the same thing too (though not necessarily for the same reasons). But as I finished shaving my labia, I suddenly remembered that in a couple of days I was going to have a colonoscopy. Shit! It wasn't a pelvic exam, but it was down there. Would they notice?

I continued thinking about it as I got out of the tub. So why does it matter? Given the current fashion for bare twat, I couldn't possibly be the only patient they will ever see with a hairless snatch. So what was bothering me? What was I really worried about?

I'm fat (something I talked about on my non-kink blog yesterday). And fat girls aren't supposed to be kinky. They're not even supposed to be sexual. We're thick, sweaty, lazy, lonely, depressed blobs who do nothing but eat and watch television. Fat girls who try to be sexual -- think of fat Monica on Friends -- are silly at best, repulsive at worse.

Would the doctors be grossed out by my smooth but pudgy pussy? Would I be the one they talked about later on in the break room? You should have seen this three hundred pound girl we worked on today. She actually had a bare beaver. I mean, I've seen them on the hot girls...but her? Ewww...

Of course, why the hell should I care if they are or not? At least that's what I told myself. And keep telling myself.

And I'll keep telling myself that until I no longer give a second thought about when my next pelvic exam is while I'm shaving my flabby but sexy, worshiped, busy cunt.

In the meantime, I think I'm going to buck up my courage after that awful experience three and a half years ago, and show that picture of my ass at the Grand Canyon off a bit more. See the left sidebar -- if you haven't already.

Flower rewards and chocolate thoughtfulness

Being better means I get to finally catch up (sorta) on some blog reading (at last!). I was just reading Constance's post at My Dabble in the Middle End about getting flowers today from her top for "being good." It makes sense to me. A. and I have talked about how, if I'm going to have a punishment book listing all the naughty things I've done, I should have a reward book listing all the good things I do. And I think flowers are as good a reward as any.

In a follow up to my rather melancholy post from Monday, I should note that when I put my Meals on Wheels into the fridge this afternoon to eat later, it bumped up against something when I tried to slide it onto the bottom shelf. I pulled it out and found a box of chocolate truffles my dear had gotten for me on his last trip to Trader Joe's the day before he left that I had forgotten all about.

Chocolate truffles are as nice a reminder of my beloved's thoughtfulness as any.

Spanking and the spiritual imagination

Last week (when I started this post) I had a couple of comments from individuals of a spiritual nature. It's made me think about how much I've talked about my own faith over the years here. Indeed, when I did a search for the word "church" on this blog, I was surprised at how many posts came up. And how many of them were some of the most personal posts I've written.

My spiritual life began early. I grew up Conservative Baptist. Accepted Jesus into my heart when I was four years old. Later I participated in AWANA, where I wowed adults and kids alike with my Bible memorization prowess (I still own my gray uniform with all the patches and trinkets on it that, if it only still fit, would make a perfect outfit in which to be spanked). In junior high I was crowned Miss CBA -- a title I won based on my biblical knowledge and public speaking skills rather than my looks -- and my duties in that role included going to girls' retreats where I shared what Jesus had done for me. At 14 years old I certainly didn't have a testimony about a life steeped in sin and debauchery, but I was quite honest when I talked about how the Jesus in my heart and my mind was with me through my mother's divorce, dating, and remarriage, as well as life with my new, abusive stepfather.

Spanking, of course, was also in my heart and head. Being among Baptists meant my imagination was frequently fed with tales about daddys' belts and paddles with Bible verses on them from friends, youth leaders, and pastors. And even though I was about as good a girl as it gets (to the point that every now and then -- to my great chagrin -- parents would ask my friends why they couldn't "act more like Michelle"), I spent a lot of time wishing for and imagining some sort of strict but loving father figure, such as the angel in this story. Though that fantasy was not yet in its Byzantine incarnation.

The Byzantine part came in graduate school. While I remained a devout Christian all through college (I even went to an Evangelical university -- at least for my freshman year until I couldn't afford it any longer and had to transfer to a state school), I became an increasingly uncomfortable Evangelical. A great deal of that had to do with the fact that I was studying the history of Evangelicalism as part of my research, which is sorta like seeing how sausage is made. I think I was also bored with the liturgical aspects of Evangelicalism -- or rather, the lack thereof. I've always craved ritual. As a teenager during Holy Week I would try diligently each day to follow the events of the week in the Gospels. And in college I put together a mixed tape of contemporary Christian music that had to do with Easter. But it felt so woefully inadequate.

When I finally started attending an Orthodox church, the priest's wife -- who was herself a former Evangelical -- welcomed me to "Easter on steroids." I loved it. As well as the Divine Liturgy -- the equivalent of Mass. It felt so other-worldly. So vertical. So connected with my spiritual imagination and my hunger for ritual. There was an aesthetic about it that my very cells relished. Though I became an Orthodox catechumen, at the end of the day I ended up Catholic for theological reasons that seemed very important to me at the time but seem less important now. And thankfully there was an Orthodox liturgical equivalent in the Catholic Church -- the Byzantine or Greek rite.

Around the same time as my chrismation (or confirmation) I began to explore my spanking kink, and I feel certain that connecting with ritual and my imagination on a spiritual level prompted me to connect to ritual and my imagination on a sexual level. Indeed one of the things I loved about my new faith was how sensual it was. How the Byzantine church seeks to utilize each one of the five senses in worship.

I certainly don't believe sex and spirituality are contradictory -- at least not now. At the time, however, they seemed as diametrical as they come, and I had no idea how to reconcile them. And so, like all good Catholics -- and, I would argue, good Baptists -- I simply dog-paddled about in guilt. I mean, what kind of good Christian girl posts to a newsgroup called soc.sexuality.spanking? Or talks to strange men on the Internet in spanking chatrooms?

Yet the Bible never says you shouldn't spank or be spanked. Indeed one could argue there are a fair number of verses to suggest it almost encourages it. But I couldn't deny a link between my spanking kink and sex. And sex -- and everything that goes with it -- was certainly bad. Or at least felt like it was. After a night of heavy petting and spanking play with a guy I was going out with, I quickly sought out my priest for confession. He counseled me that the only thing the Bible prohibited was sexual intercourse outside of marriage and for everything else, I was going to have to decide where I wanted to set the boundaries.

Clearly spanking was going to be well within the boundaries upon which I decided. But eventually as I became an increasingly uncomfortable Catholic and no longer took the Bible (or the Magisterium) as literally as I had before, fornication also moved to well within my boundaries. As has embracing the sexualities of others including not just homosexuality or BDSM, but polyamory and sex work. I don't doubt that my inability to attend Divine Liturgy on a regular basis (it's been two years since I was last able to go, though I hope my improving health will change that) hastened my changing faith. Or rather, made its evolution feel a bit less dissonant and guilt-ridden.

But as I said above, kink and faith are not necessarily dissonant. I think my favorite example of this is the story Raven shared in this comment about coming out to her spiritual director. "...[H]e reassured me that he didn't find it to be problematic or strange and thought it was a wonderful gift that God had given to me." Isn't it just? I responded to her comment at the time by mentioning something my priest had once said about how, because we are made in the image of God, when we hide who we really are to the world, we hide some aspect of God. I can't say that I understand the Divine well enough to know exactly what aspect of being kinky is part of being made in the image of God. But I know it is, and that knowledge that God not only accepts me but wants me to be the person made in the image of God that I am -- kinky and all -- is a powerful and liberating thing.

I think it's when I'm getting a particularly hard or specifically disciplinary spanking that I feel spanking intersect with the spiritual the most. It's like communion in a way. Instead of the Eucharist binding us together, it's a hairbrush or ping pong paddle. There is sacrifice, suffering, and redemption. Something transcendent that binds the two of us together into one whole, if only for a few minutes.

And in those few minutes, I'm so grateful to be a spanko. So savor the spiritual. Am so at peace with myself.

*******************
Note: I found an old freewrite this afternoon when I was working on the last paragraphs of this post that I published over at the Punishment Book.