What would your mother say

Via Spanking Blog comes an entertaining story of how an indiscreet spanking led to an awkward parental conversation. Followed by an even more awkward awakening of long dormant parental kink. I’m not sure what would embarrass me more. My parents finding out about my kinks, or me discovering theirs.

It actually puts me in mind of a conversation I’ve had about this topic with a close friend of mine. She knows about my kinky preferences and has raised the question of what I share with my family. She has a young daughter and hates the thought the she might grow up concealing a huge part of her identity. I understand that. If something’s important to their child it’s important to the parent. At the same time I can’t begin to imagine having that kind of conversation with my parents. The endless analysis of my childhood and exactly where they went wrong would drive me insane. Nobody needs to hear how their toilet training simply must be related to their interest in S&M. Amateur psychology, parental guilt and embarrassing sexual details might make great subjects for a Woody Allen film, but I don’t need it whenever my family are in town.

At least the original story gives me a chance to feature an entertaining spanking themed shot. I’m not sure if this is a plea for mercy or a prayer for punishment. Either way I suspect this ends with that hairbrush getting deployed at speed.

Spanking Prayer

I found this on the Led Marriage and Chastity (aka Carolus666) tumblr. It’s originally from Lina’s House of Discipline.

Added Barb to Femdom Artwork

As the titles suggests, I’ve added an entry in the Femdom Artwork section for Barbara O’Toole aka Barb.

I have to admit that her common themes of domestic discipline and older women with younger men doesn’t push my personal buttons. I like pain and submission for it’s own sake, not in a wider context of punishment. But I know she’s a very popular artist (RedRump and Underling are on record as fans) and she’s undoubtedly a deserving entrant in my femdom artist wall of fame.

Artwork by Barbara O'Toole

10 ways to tell if your sex article is rubbish

Reading Cosmo has always been a guilty pleasure. When I was young, and furtively reading copies my mother brought home, it seemed a fascinating window into a sophisticated adult world. Now I’m older, and find it in waiting rooms, it’s still a fascinating window into a different world. Unfortunately the world is one of absolutely nutty advice written by people who appear to have absolutely no clue what they’re talking about.

I’ve recently seen a few blog posts pointing to a Jezebel article mocking Cosmo’s BDSM advice. However, I have to say they’re a little late to the game. Cliff over at The Pervocracy has been entertainingly pulling apart their sex advice for years now. And while mocking Cosmo sex advice is like shooting fish in a barrel – if it’s a tiny barrel, and a big fish, and it’s dead already, and you’ve got a shotgun – I have to say she’s doing a much better job of it then Jezebel. Here’s a taster from her most recent post

If you ask him out on a second date, he’ll likely feel emasculated… and that’s pretty much the worst thing you can do to a guy.

It’s gotta be inconvenient having your gender role defined by what someone else does. You’re going along, being all masculine, and then your date fucks it up and breaks your masculinity so you have to be feminine! And you don’t even own a decent pair of heels so then you have to go shopping! Talk about a pain in the neck!

And here’s a snippet from her take on their article on that book

Maybe it will discuss how BDSM exists as a community, how it encompasses a broad range of activities and motivations, and above all else, how crucial enthusiastic consent and explicit communication are in BDSM!

Suprise-attack him with a few of these tonight… and that’s an order.

…Maybe not.

Use the back of a brush to swat his thighs when he steps out of the shower–wet skin is more sensitive.

That’s not a sexy surprise, Cosmo. That’s battery.

If you’ve not read any of The Pervocracy articles before, then I think you’re in for an entertaining treat. In the meantime, I’ll use the flimsy above reference to a swat with a hairbrush to feature this image. It’s of Miss Dawn, a professional disciplinary from Cambridge in the UK.

Miss DawnIf you find yourself in the Cambridge region and fancy a swat across the thigh with this hairbrush (wet or otherwise), Miss Dawn’s session information is here. I originally found the image on the Strict Women tumblr.

Popping my cherry

A recent post by Underling posed what I thought was an interesting question for submissives. He was writing about spanking, and in particular that first experience…

…do you remember your first time? What prompted that initial collision of palm and derriere? Was it spontaneous, planned, paid for? Was it all you’d dreamed of and more, or were you left wondering what all the fuss was about?

He follows the question with a nice story describing his own first time, featuring a slightly surreal but ultimately satisfying session with a nice professional dominant lady.

My first adult spanking was also in a professional session, but it was oddly late in my kinky career. During my first few months of BDSM ‘for real’ (as opposed to in my fevered imagination), I did a pretty good impression of a kid in a candy store (apologies for the clashing mental image). I wanted to try everything. Ropes, whips, canes, needles, nipple clamps, gags, cuffs, pegs. You name it, I wanted it attached, inserted or applied at speed. Yet oddly I never got around to a traditional over the knee spanking. Somehow it seemed a little old fashioned.

I ended up having my first spanking almost accidentally. We’d been trying to do a suspension scene, and it just hadn’t worked out. I was having some joint issues, we couldn’t get the balance right, the rope harness was too tight, Libra was on the cusp of Capricorn, the BDSM gods were grumpy, etc. Normally a suspension will take a full session, so when it didn’t pan out we suddenly had extra playtime, and Lydia decided that a spanking was the right way to fill it. So like Underling my first time had a touch of the surreal, but in my case it was because it caught me so unawares. My thought process ran along the lines of “This is weird. Why am I getting over her knee? How is this going to work? It’s almost like…ohhh…we’re spanking! That’s kind of fun!”

Since then I’ve done it a number of times and always enjoyed it. I don’t get the rush from it that I think true spanking aficionados experience, but I like the close physical contact and the intimacy of it. Whipping and caning can be quite isolating. The pain makes me turn inwards and focus on my body. But a spanking is definitely a shared experience.

After The Spanking by UnderlingImage is by Underling from his site Underling’s Humblings.

Spanking the monarch

Here’s a nice piece of femdom fan art by SpankingFemFatale. For those of you who don’t recognize the characters (shame on you!) it’s the evil mastermind known as The Monarch and his partner Dr Girlfriend (later known as Dr. Mrs The Monarch). They’re from the show the Venture Brothers, a post-modern cartoon series which packs a huge number of pop cultures references and allusions into every episode. I always found the smart and competent Dr. Girlfriend very sexy despite, or maybe because of, her deep gravelly voice. For those who have never seen the show, here’s a short clip of her in action.

Spanking The Monarch

Can’t get no respect

I’m not quite sure how I found my way to this article on the you beauty site. God knows I need all the beauty tips I can get, but it’s not exactly my regular web browsing fodder. I suspect it was something to do with the 50 shades of grey (or of bleauh) spillover into the mainstream media. However I got there, I ended up being both amused and annoyed by the articles take on BDSM.

The amusing bit was this…

In a study Hawley presented this March, the results indicated another interesting conclusion about submissive fantasies. Handing over the reins to your partner isn’t just a sexual desire exclusive to women. Men like when women take control in the bedroom.

There’s a penetrating insight if ever I saw one. Elements of the BDSM community might get annoyed by professional dominatrices being the common face of femdom, but you have to admit they are at least a very public face. It’s hard to imagine anyone not being aware of their existence. And if you know they exist, who do you think is paying them all the money?

The annoying bit was this…

The research found no evidence that wanting to be dominated is synonymous with masochism, for either gender. In other words, submission and self-respect can easily go hand-in-hand.

So apparently masochism is associated with a lack of self-respect. Did I miss the memo on this? I’ve always thought it was related to the way pain can be processed, but then again what’s my opinion worth? I’m just a useless masochist.

I’ll leave you with a shot of a man letting his partner take control in the bedroom. I’m not sure if he’s nobly submitting or masochistically denigrating himself. Either way, I like the image.

StrappingI found this on the Mina’s Kinks tumblr.

Fatal Beatings

I thought it was time for another post featuring a collection of themed tumblr links. There aren’t any fatal beatings in here I hope, but I was inspired to do something on a spanking theme by stumbling across this old sketch by Rowan Atkinson. It’s one of his best, featuring an acerbic headmaster who is very concerned about the attitude of a problematic pupil.

For an accompanying post image, I liked the dynamic nature of the shot below. It has caught the moment of impact perfectly, with a nicely balanced mistress and very squashed and red ass.

Mistress paddling slave

Savoir-faire

Today’s post brings you news of an article from 2004. Don’t say that Femdom Resource doesn’t deliver the latest in BDSM culture!

I was reminded of it after reading some of the comments on my earlier post about approaching a dominant woman. Ferns linked to an excellent post she’d written on the subject, which emphasized that the person comes before the submissive. It’s a package deal, and nobody is going to spend time with someone who can scream delightfully when whipped but is an annoying jerk the rest of the time. Playing with gags can be fun, but they shouldn’t be a requirement for a relationship.

This philosophy put me in mind of an old article from Mistress Matisse on how she started dating her primary partner Max. He’s actually a male dominant, but I don’t think that fact alters the underlying point. She wasn’t attracted to some aspect of his sexuality, that actually counted against him initially. It was the fact he was capable, quietly confident and self-possessed that was a significant part of the initial attraction. I also can’t resist posting a link to an article that opens with the following line.

As Max and I approach the fifth anniversary of our first date, I’ve been thinking about the fact that if my submissive, Jae, didn’t have such a big clitoris, Max and I might never have gone on that date at all.
Mistress Matisse in ‘Me, Max and Jae’

That must be a great way to start a response to the old cliched question – ‘So how did you two meet?’

For images I can bring you shots of two out of the three people in question. The first shot below is Mistress Matisse giving Bobbi Starr a spanking in a scene for Everything Butt. The second image is Jae giving some lucky guy a good paddling, taken from this blog post.

Mistress Matisse and Bobbi Starr
Jae swinging a paddle

Spanking theory

When I look back over my posts it strikes me that I’ve featured a surprisingly small amount of traditional style spanking. I have to go all the way back to last year to find a posted image that even alludes to it. This isn’t a deliberate choice on my part, but clearly there must be a degree of subconscious selection going on here. I also don’t think I’ve ever directly asked for a spanking, although I have enjoyed them when a session has naturally evolved in that direction.

In some ways I find spanking an odd activity. I don’t mean that it’s weird or wrong, but just that it seems to possess unusual characteristics that other activities don’t share. It has a historical and a cultural meaning that doesn’t exist with other types of physical D/s interaction.

One thing that held me back for a long time from doing my first pro-domme session was the idea that it’d feel weird. I imagined that I’d be embarrassed by the scene or start laughing when someone tried to tie me up. In the event that didn’t happen. I’ve done scenes that most non-kinky people would think were very unusual, and found them entirely normal, at least for my strange measure of normality. In hindsight I think that this is down to the lack of context. I have no cultural conditioning around how two people should behave when doing play piercing, breathplay or heavy bondage. I just do it and enjoy it. And yet when I get pulled over someones lap for a spanking there is a passing moment of discombobulation. It has a meaning and wider context that come along with it, despite the fact I was never spanked in that fashion as a child.

I got to thinking about this while reading Red Rump’s entertaining tale of his early yearnings for a little babysitter spanking action. Like Red Rump, and a lot of kinky people, my desires started when I was young. However, I didn’t focus on a particular activity. Instead I fantasized about very general ideas of control and restraint. The idea of pain and punishment was always subservient to this broader sense of being dominated. For a lot of spanking fans it seems to be the other way around, where the specific activity is the focus and the elements of domination flow from that. I think it’s telling that the two activities with the most cultural context, spanking and bondage, also attracts the most dedicated and focused followings.

Personally, despite rarely having them, I have always enjoyed a traditional spanking. The sense of closeness to the dominant and the physical communication between the two bodies make for a very unique experience. But I think for me it’s in spite of the cultural background. That’s something I have to overcome in order to simply enjoy the raw activity for what it is. I suspect for a lot of spanko’s it’s the reverse situation, and a lot of the enjoyment comes from the broader context it has and the personal meaning they bring to the act.

Anyone managing to make it through all that random wurbling from me deserves at least a good spanking picture, so here you go. She certainly seems to be enjoying applying that hairbrush with some serious force.

Happy SpankerI found this on the lash kisser tumblr site.