Inappropriate, rude, and disrespectful

When comments are made on any of our blogs, they are automatically emailed straight to Master. Sometimes it turns out that someone will comment on an older post, and given the way blogs tend to work, if He didn't get those email alerts, we'd never see those comments at all... After all, who goes cruising back through all those weeks and months and years looking for the random late appearing comment?



Today, interestingly, there were two comments on posts from "awhile back." Both comments were by the same person -- someone who goes by the nick "sixofthebest." I am about 95% certain that whoever this critter is, I'm probably not the only one to be treated to his less than savory attentions. I have this feeling that there are dozens, or maybe even hundreds of bloggers who have been approached even as I was...

• sixofthebest has left a new comment on your post "New Cane": Dear Swan, I would love to flog you, while you are on the 'whipping post'. Yes 'twelve of the best', with the pliable stinging cane, would be just perfect for that voluptous bare bottom of yours. Don't you agree?


• sixofthebest has left a new comment on your post "Buy Me Some Peanuts and Cracker Jacks...": Dear Swan, I am a Yankee fan, living just 15 minutes from Yankee Stadium. And since the Yankee's won the World Series, I would love to celebrate this occasion, by taking you over my knee, and bare your bottom, so that I can spank your voluptous 'derriere', thats French for bottom, painfully red.

My first reaction to that silliness is, "ewwwwwwwww!" Then, I wondered, how someone "in the scene" could be so totally clueless about simple matters of protocol and courtesy -- things like not messing with someone else's property, just for starters.

But... cluelessness is where you find it. So, let me try to lay this out for sixofthebest and anyone else of that ilk:

1) If you do not want to come off as a total idiot, it would pay you to read what is clearly stated, and made obvious to the most casual passer-by here at TheHeronClan -- I am the slave of Raheretic; His property; owned. Should you decide that you somehow want to have more than a conversational interaction with me, common courtesy dictates that you speak with my Master. Approaching me with suggestive talk is inappropriate, rude, and disrespectful.

2) In spite of the fact that I engage in alternative sexual practices, and in spite of the fact that our polyamorous lifestyle does not match up with the current social norms, I am a human being -- not simply some piece of meat or wisp of your overheated fantasizing. I have feelings. I have a mind. I have boundaries. For you to behave as if none of that is true is inappropriate, rude, and disrespectful.

3) Besides living the role of slave in a power exchange relationship, my sexual/erotic orientation is to sadomasochism, and I fall on the masochistic side of the continuum. Notice -- this is my sexual/erotic way of being in the world. It is not some silly game to me. It is not something I play at. If you talk about spanking me, then you are talking about sex. Opening a conversation with "how about I spank/cane/whip/fill-in-the-blank you?" is JUST THE SAME as if you walked up to me out of the clear blue and said, "hey, let's fuck." It is as if some totally strange fellow accosted your daughter with "hey, show me your tits," or grabbed your mother's crotch, or waved his dick at your wife. It is inappropriate, rude, and disrespectful. Not to mention probably illegal.

4) I like conversation. I think that relationships get built through the medium of conversation. I insist that conversations begin in a civilized fashion -- "hello" and "let me introduce myself" and "I'd like to get to know you better" are all entirely acceptable. Assuming that I have any interest in a sexual or erotic encounter with someone who I know nothing about is just too stupid to even believe -- oh yeah, it is also (obviously) inappropriate, rude, and disrespectful.

5) And speaking of stupid... If you use some word in your writing that you believe no one but you will understand; if you write so obscurely that you are convinced you have to explain your meaning; then you are a remarkably poor communicator. On top of that, your assumption that I am too ignorant to understand you is insulting. Get off your high horse! I'd imagine that there are plenty of people writing blogs that have more extensive and sophisticated vocabularies and language fluency than you do. Based on what I can see of your writing, I know I am in that number. Once again, your approach is inappropriate, rude, and disrespectful.

6) Basically, mind your manners. Failure to do that marks you as a wannabe or even the universally derided HNG (horny net geek). It is unattractive and unappealing, not to mention inappropriate, rude, and disrespectful.

swan

Confused Jumbled Chaotic Swirling Winds

Lately I feel that we are in transition with our Blog here, and within our lives. When we began TheHeronClan, and its predecessor TheSwansHeart, it was at my direction that swan began posting. She was becoming depressed and feeling isolated living as the "non-married" third partner and slave in a D/s triad intentional family, in a new place, and having to a great degree burned her bridges with her family to join us. I wanted her to have a way to connect with others, to feel a sense of community. I knew that her intellect and literacy would make her a "sensation" in the blogosphere. All those objectives were achieved through our experience here as was my prediction of how she would be received.

Too, as a result we have made some wonderful friends, some of them virtual, and some real time people with whom we have come to share our lives and theirs, our feelings, triumphs, struggles, good times and failures. That has been wonderful.

I think early on we wanted to meet with people with whom we shared our polyamorous and/or bDDsm sensual erotic orientation. We believed that sharing that orientation was enough of a common bond to be socially compatible with others. I think we thought that, because of the stigma, and social isolation of these alternative lifestyles we would find all (or most) others on here people we would want to spend time with. We have learned that was a fallacy. We don't want to spend time socializing with all BDSM-ers or all polys, anymore than we would want to spend time with all heterosexuals, or all monogamists, or all secular humanists, or whatever other broad based demographic commonality. Thank goodness we have found a few people with whom we can be who we are without pretense, who have become good friends (with whom we never seem to be able to spend the time and energy we'd like). We have others whom we have yet to meet, but who we may well get to meet in the weeks and months ahead as well. This has been an important learning and a valuable and life affirming connection to others.

We live in Cincinnati, Ohio. Cincinnati is in general, as a community, one of the most backward, conservative, regressive, religiously obsessed major urban centers in North America. It makes finding friends with whom we share our orientation difficult. We have learned that we generally do not mix well with most other BDSM-ers and poly's in real time social situations, and the precious little time we have to spend with others we don't want to squander with people we don't enjoy.

We are less alone and isolated and this blog has been a vehicle to achieve that.

I am just as spanking obsessed as ever. I endlessly want to spank swan and wish there was more time for that and greater congruence in our mutual needs for spanking. That having been said, it is not likely that there could be a committed life long love between two people who share an orientation to adult consensual spanking, which is much more congruent.

When we were brand new together, I spanked her more often, and more severely than we do now. She was very fulfilled and excited by that. I was the happiest unrepentant sadist on earth. Over time and changes, and evolution of our relationship, and to a great extent aging, we do not continue that same spanking style. I know that I, as her Master, could well simply take her and beat her as much and as often as I choose to and could, not only ignore her trauma, but get off on it. The reality is I love her so deeply, and sadist that I am, I also care about how traumatized she is. I want there to be a healthy degree of symbiosis between us in our sadomasochistic intimacy. We struggle with a sort of sadomasochistic compersive compatibility paradox. If I am too high end in our play, she becomes emotionally traumatized and then feels she has failed and fears I will leave her for a "more worthy" partner, a complete fallacy, but it is her reality whether delusional or not. If on the other hand, I pull back too far in my spanking intensity, she has an intense need to be spanked that swells beyond control and makes her desperate for that closeness and intensity. I feel I perhaps am too concerned for her needs, and should simply pursue my own, but my need to see my love's fulfillment is just as much my reality as is her fear of being left for another. What a Knot!

About every two weeks someone from the Internet contacts me wanting to explore partnering with me around disciplinary spanking. I tell them honestly how that would work with me. That generally ends the exploration:) They want to be spanked, but not painfully, or not actually in ways that would make change in their lives to achieve behavioral objectives inevitable (despite that that is overtly what they express a desire to achieve). They generally want to be enmeshed in a co-dependant gavotte with a spanker who will pretend to "discipline" them, so they will experience spankings they will secretly "get off" on, as they melodramatize their angst at being disciplined (i. e., the functional description of most of what passes for DD). I am decades past the need to tell them what they want to hear to get them over my knee, or to not confront them for duplicitousness with themselves and me about what they want. Besides that, if I am going to expend any of the precious time and energy I need for swan, t, my Dad, t's Mom, my agency, friends, etc. on someone else, they will relate on my terms. I get so tired of people who want you to Dominate them, and who want to be Dominated just the way "they say." BULLSHIT! Surprise, surprise those relationships never come to fruition even as disciplinary mentorships (which is all they were ever intended to be.) Additionally, even the existence of these correspondences makes swan wildly insecure, and fearful she will somehow be jettisoned (which belies a complete lack of understanding of me, of what I feel for her, or my devotion, and leaves me feeling not only frustrated at my inability to have a disciplinary mentoring relationships, but feeling terrifically misunderstood and negatively judged.) There are times I find myself wondering about spanking other men. I have no homo-erotic orientation, but wonder if that could permit me to practice a purely sadistic spanking practice, without there being any (perceived or real) potential for romantic or sexual entanglement as a result. If I ever begin to move that way though, such major approach/avoidance develops that it quickly dissembles.

My grieving over the loss of t's and my sadomasochistic relationship for nine years now, is long past. I am proud we have found it possible for us to continue our love and marriage with her as service submissive and sister to my swan.

There are times when I wonder at my complete loss of my ever exploring or playing with the bottom end of the power exchange as I once did. I hear swan's longing for that and wonder if that would provide an outlet for t and i to reconnect to a degree sadomasochistically, but then too, I have no such inclination, and experience approach/avoidance (unbalanced in the direction of "avoidance") when I try to wrap my head around that alternative.

I keep having spanking technique themed essays that bounce about in my head and never seem to come to composition. My now decades long practice of adult consensual spanking has evolved, both in my techniques and desires. I am way more interested in intensely stinging spanking with lighter and whippier implements, that excruciate partners and minimize the damage and "thuddy trauma" that results. I have recently realized that the style of switches I most desire to use (switching still being my favorite flagellation technique) is actually a style of birch called a Manx Birch named after a community is Wales (Manx) where they began using these style switch rods as judicial and domestic disciplinary birches in the 19th and 20th centuries in the UK. There are times when my never ending obsessive fantasizing of administering these switchings makes me question if this is some sort of collective unconscious archetypal memory or past life echo.

I would like to have the time, space and partnership to further my practice of single tail flogging. I have wonderful whips and haven't really had the time or opportunity to develop my skill with them beyond a mere average. I am never satisfied with average excellence in any aspect of my life, and certainly not in this most seminal aspect of my identity.

I am seeing an evolution in the blogosphere. So many Blogs we've valued have discontinued recently. So much of what is written now is different than what was common five years ago. To have success, defined as building readership stats, it seems one must write superficially about spanking as a humorous and erotic device, or preach a lifestyle orthodoxy, to have insecure new explorers of this aspect of their lives emulate your life not find their own way, to their own truth and love.

When we began here our purpose was to express ourselves truthfully, and to connect with others who could resonate with that reality. It was not to achieve volumes of Internet linkages but to achieve as many quality relationships as we could. Recently my (and therefore our:) prioritization of that value is reaffirmed. I have every desire for us to describe the reality of our lives. I have no desire for others to change their realities based upon our choices. If some do feel there is resonance that is supportive of them in their lives, what wonderful serendipity, but that is purely an "extra." We will continue to decry lifestyle gurus with their helplines when that occasion occurs even if they continue to threaten to out us to our employers and ruin our professional lives for daring to confront their co-dependent exploitation of those who are insecure enough to succumb to guru worship.

If there is any theme to this post I have no idea what it might be, other than discontinuous chaos.

I have felt a need to get these thoughts out of me for some time and as embarrassed I am about the lack of quality composition in this post, I hope that "getting it out of me" will free me to move on in my future writing. If you have had the misfortune to wade through this, my gratitude and condolences.

All the best,

Tom

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.

Beware!

There's blood on my sheets. Not menstrual blood -- I don't do that anymore; haven't for years. No. The blood stains on my sheets are there because He spanked me on Saturday morning with a variety of paddles, straps, floggers, canes, and whips. When He was done, He told me that I'd gotten blood all over the toys.

Nod.

My skin is fragile and there are times when it blisters and breaks under the impact of our play. From two or three places on my backside, the blood flows -- sometimes in a slow ooze, and sometimes in a much more impressive sort of flow. Sometimes, He quits when the bleeding starts. Sometimes not. It isn't anything that I can ever actually discern in the onslaught of sensations -- I never know if there is blood or not... until I see it splotched across the sheets.

But it is there -- the blood. Smeared and splashed on the paddles and the whips and the straps and the canes. My blood. Yesterday, and last week, and the week before that ... time after time after time. Next week and the week after and the week after that.

Blood marks my place. Blood defines my space. Blood becomes the signature of my submission and slavery. It will not be washed away.

swan

My Fantasy

In the last couple of weeks, I've begun to harbor a secret fantasy... My fantasy has captured my imagination, and whenever my mind has time to rest quietly, I find myself dwelling on the possibilities...

In my fantasy, we sell our cars and our homes; liquidate everything; we take our respective retirement benefits -- and we retire to Mexico. There is inexpensive health care available there. We could easily rent a comfortable and attractive home for a about a quarter of the price we pay each month for our two condos. We'd have less stress. We'd have more time. No more packing our lives in around our work and the demands that makes.

It seems like heaven to me. I keep finding myself imagining a life that is simple and uncluttered and that moves at the pace we set. I am, I guess, wanting to run away from all this grown up worry and work. It is completely and utterly impractical I suppose, but somehow my mind just won't let it go.

Maybe I'll start studying a bit of Spanish... Won't hurt anything, and it will feed my dream.

swan

Fantasies Are Not Bad

Fantasies are not bad things. In fact, fantasies can be good. Those bits of mental imagery that so fire our hearts, minds, and bodies are capable of enlivening and invigorating our sexual responses. For many of us, living inside of BDSM relationships, fantasy is the stuff that we use to drive our connections forward.


It is, however, important to know where the edges are. The thing about fantasy is that it is not limited by practical or physical reality. We can imagine all sorts of interactions that may seem incredibly hot, and have no relationship to anything that can or should ever happen in the real world.


So, it is not uncommon for women to have vivid rape fantasies -- which do not even remotely resemble the reality of violent rape. Dominance fantasies are among the most common fantasies for women, and in those fantasies, women most frequently are the top partner. Many of us indulge in fantasy role plays: school girl, interrogation, sexy nurse... lots and lots of costume dramas. Commonly, women report fantasies about sex with a stranger -- involving them or involving their partners, and many of us have voyeuristic fantasies. The realm of sexual fantasy is a rich and fertile source of sexual excitement and pleasure.


There's one element that is common to every single sexual fantasy, though, and it is important to understand this -- we are in absolute control of our fantasies. We do the casting, the set design, the scripting. We call the shots, and we decide when and how we will engage and participate in the various scenes that we play out on the internal screens of our minds.


So, I think I absolutely understand the sort of excitement that may be a driving force when someone talks the way kaya did about her fantasy that her Master engage sexually with another woman. There's a great masochistic flavor to her vividly drawn imaginary scene where she is confronted with the potential for Him to connect with another woman who is better...

So here’s something that I had totally dismissed as being worth blogging about:
Master left yesterday for a short business trip. The first thing I asked him was if he’s going to fuck/use another woman.
He shrugged. Said he didn’t know. Said maybe. Said it would depend. I told him he should. In fact, I practically begged him to.
Encouraged it.
He’s never done it. Never. Oh, to play with another, yes. But fucking? Nope.
When he talks about it, he talks too much about my feelings. He wants me involved, he wants me there, he wants me to not feel cheated on. He thinks something like that should be a joint activity.
This frustrates me.
He’ll talk about threesomes, things like that, and I just shake my head. I don’t WANT to have a threesome (well. I mean, I DO. And I would. But that’s a separate thang.) What I want is to be at home while he’s off fucking another woman. Or to be in the room, but not allowed to participate while he fucks/uses another woman in front of me.
I want my face rubbed in it. I want to cry about it. I want to hurt about it. I want to wonder if she was better than me- No. I want him to tell me she was better than me. I want to be compared, and found lacking, even if it isn’t true.
We have these repeated conversations, pretty much every time he takes off on a trip. He keeps saying that he doesn’t want or need another. That he’s content with me, that I take care of his needs, blah blah blah. And I keep saying that it isn’t ABOUT that (and think that maybe I should stop taking such good care of his needs if’n I’m ever gonna get my way. But *smack my hand* them’s bad girl thoughts, dontchaknow.)
Finally he was like, wtf is your deal? Why do you push this all the time?
So. You know why? I’ll tell you why.
It’s not just about emotional masochism, though I’m sure that factors in.
It’s because I want to… I NEED to… have this prideful contentment erased. Scrubbed out. Obliterated.
I want to feel less secure in my slavery. I want to experience jealousy and fear.
I want to be reminded that I don’t own him.
Plus, you know, it’s perverted as all fuck.

Yeah. Fantasy. A number of her commenters said, "Be careful what you ask for," and that is good advice -- because real life relationships are not as easily controlled or scripted or well mannered as our imaginings might make it seem. We tend, in this poly-fascinated world, to believe that there is no real reason for relational jealousy or insecurity, but that is just not the reality. People do get hurt emotionally when there are "extraneous" relationships -- not every time. Not all the time. But it isn't unheard of; not even uncommon.

So... In real life, the mystery woman that plays that part in the "hot" fantasy, just might not behave "properly" in the event:

IF your partner decides to take on another relationship, that relationship will have its own life, its own parameters, its own boundaries and values.
That other woman that you create in your imaginings isn't real, but if what you imagine comes to pass, it will be with a real, flesh and blood human person.
SHE will have her own feelings, her own wants and needs, her own ideas, her own agenda -- and you will have no control over any of that.
SHE will not follow your script.
SHE may or may not come to know who you are.
SHE may or may not care about you, and you may or may not like her.
SHE may or may not value or honor your situation, station, or role.
SHE doesn't have to.
SHE will occupy space and SHE will soak up energy and time.
The time will come when SHE likely will be in your home, sitting on your furniture, sleeping on your sheets, using your towels, toiletries, toys.
SHE will not be put away when you are tired of your fantasy.
SHE will be back tomorrow and next week and next month. And if not her, then someone else.
In all liklihood, SHE won't contribute anything much to your world. The chores, the bills, the worries, those will all still be yours.
SHE will come and go on a schedule that has no time for the boring details of real life.
What you work to create and provide, SHE will just take as her right.
SHE will be around for the goodies.

Fantasy and reality are the two halves of our emotional, sexual lives. We who claim the label of masochist are sometimes prone to a sort of bravura that can lead us into damaging and destructive choices. We know that is a risk to those who are new, unattached, and hungry, but what about those who are "into" established dynamics? Is it possible for us to talk ourselves into places that are simply not healthy. There are people who create good and positive poly relationships, but that isn't what this is about. This is about generating extra relational dynamics that are designed to be hurtful and painful. I'd say that's an OK fantasy, but a really bad idea when it comes to real life.

swan

Buy Me Some Peanuts and Cracker Jacks...

I've been craving some spanking. That is the simple truth of being my sort of masochist -- if it doesn't happen for awhile, I start to get edgy and out of sorts. Especially, it seems to me, when I am feeling ill; even more especially if I am feverish, the little, feisty, spanking demi-urges begin to march around in my brain carrying picket signs and claiming unfair treatment on the part of the management.

Now, I do my best not to ever accuse The Management of anything unfair, so that sort of internal mob behavior is very unsettling. But here's the thing... I'd first filled Himself in on how I was feeling about all of this in the middle of last week (while I was still really pretty sick). That "date with fate" did not happen due to a whole pile of circumstances, and I understood. I did. I just hoped that when the weekend came along, we'd catch up with one another. Except that on Saturday morning, I woke up feeling crummy with a miserable headache. I eventually shook the headache but by then, it was college football and grading papers and all the stuff that gets wrapped up into our weekends, and the opportunity just drifted away like a puff of smoke. I turned my anticipation on Sunday -- surely Sunday morning we'll get some time and be able to work a spanking into the schedule! It all seemed promising in the beginning. He woke up and seemed horny -- a good sign. He messed around and humped on me for a good long while, and then He was ready -- to make love. So. OK. That's cool. I jumped on board and did that voodoo that I do, reducing my evil sadist to a silly, grinning, cooing 16-year-old in a flash. And, then He was hungry -- for breakfast.

Imagine the air hissing out of a very big balloon... ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.

I got up. Made breakfast. Finished my school work. Surfed the Internet. He went for a walk -- still too cold out for my recently sick self to go with Him. I got a shower. Did some laundry. He came back and turned on the football games. I tried not to fuss; tried to keep the voice quiet that tells me that "if He doesn't want to spank, it must be because He's getting that need taken care of somewhere else." The afternoon wound on into evening. I made dinner. Cleaned up the kitchen. Puttered. He wasn't feeling all that terrific after dinner. It happens nowadays. Food is often "the enemy;" making Him feel queasy and uncomfortable. It was all I could do to keep myself from dissolving into tears. I just wanted to cry from the combination of pent-up wanting, loneliness, and fear of rejection. The world series game came on TV at about 8:15 PM. I'd long since given up hope. I'd started to write a blog post, but He asked me to come snuggle on the couch with Him, so I put the computer away, wrapped up in a blanket, and snuggled in next to Him. It wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but it was still nice.

Somewhere along the line, as the game got rolling -- and yes, Mr. Upstate-New-York is a Yankees fan, He suddenly chuckled and said (mostly to Himself), "I just had a wonderful idea." He was up off the couch, wandering here and there. I was about half asleep, drowsing and feeling sorry for myself. Suddenly, He was back with His New York Yankees ballcap, and a fistful of paddles. "I've figured out the best way to watch this game," He told me. "Now get up and get over my lap." He stuck the ball cap on my head, grinning at my astonished face, as I scrambled up and around to drape myself over His lap.

Of course, by this time, I'd managed to work myself into a pouty place, and dragging back from the pouty place takes a bit of time. He didn't seem all that into it which fueled my doubts. I could hear myself muttering away to myself in my head -- on and on and on.

Oh yeah, and there was the matter of that baseball cap. It is impossible to lay face down in a baseball cap. The bill sticks out! I sputtered and growled, and finally just turned it around so the bill was in the back. That made Him laugh! "You look like a catcher," He told me.

It was an interesting spanking; slow and almost laconic. He just seemed to whomp away on my butt, sometimes with His hand, sometimes with one of the paddles, sometimes just rubbing me or stroking me with a knife blade. There was none of the usual intensity and ferociousness. It confused me -- made me think He was just humoring me. Eventually, He had me stand up and pull my jeans off, and then it was back down for some more spanking on my "pretty panties." It went on and on, slowly and leisurely, and in time He got around to pulling the panties down and smacking away on my bare skin.

It never once seemed to me that it reached the level of feeling very difficult or very intense. It did go on for a good long while as the game droned on in the background. I think He might have had it in mind to spank through the whole game, but He quit much earlier than that because He got too hot with me draped over Him. And so, I ended up curled up back on the couch next to Him, and that was when I began to notice that my rear was really tender. Really. Tender. Apparently, slowly as He went, the cumulative effect was pretty significant. Even today, as I've worked and taught, I notice that I am sitting carefully. Wow. I guess I did finally get what I'd been hungering after. After all.

swan

Good or Not-Good?

There is a fair amount of self-congratulatory, smug and righteous back slapping going on around our corner of the blogosphere these last couple of weeks. It isn't everyone, thank goodness, but there are folks that seem to feel that it is needful just now to tell each and all how good and right they are, and then share the accolades from blog to blog.


It has me thinking, when I'm not muttering about how pissed off the whole game makes me, about what exactly it is that makes us "good" or "bad," and how a person can be certain which category they fall into? I think I'm a pretty good person -- not nearly perfect, but pretty decent most of the time. But, I imagine, based on the sorts of things that the "we're just awfully good" crowd are pointing to, I'd be way out on the "not so good" end of the scale. Part of me wants to growl the question: "and just who in bloody hell do you think you are deciding who is and is not good," but part of me is intrigued with the question.


So... simple stuff first: humans, throughout history and across cultures have a pretty straightforward view of what is and isn't good. In nearly every human society, good people avoid harming others; they respect the property of other people; they contribute, according to their capacities, to the general well-being of the community. Those general social precepts form the basis historically for the creation of systems of law. As complicated as we can make it, the fact is that social laws and rules are based on our shared understandings of what is important for us each to protect -- the things we most value. So it is, that "civilized" people tend to agree, with very little discussion, that murder is wrong, theft is wrong, damaging children is wrong, abusing animals is wrong, lying is wrong, ... There is really not much incremental difference between us on most of that. We may argue passionately about the ethical edges; hence the endless and usually fruitless debates about abortion, the death penalty, justifications for war, and end of life decisions -- but the reasonable ones among us mostly don't square off and determine that the other side is "bad" simply because they disagree with our views.



None of that is IT when we are working at convincing ourselves that we are "good" and someone else is "bad." Nope. It's sex. Even in our circle; even with our shared interest in spanking and assorted kinks, there are cliques and clubs and in-groups and out-groups. There are some pretty convoluted measures of "good" and "bad," but I suspect that a very great deal of that judgement is firmly anchored in Puritanical notions of "proper" displays of sexual attraction and interest between men and women. However carefully we choose our words; however we work to attend to the politically correct views of our community; however we congratulate ourselves on our open mindedness, when the less than truly open minded are in the company of their peers, it seems there is a tendency to revert to very norm-driven conventions. So it is that we find our back slappers declaring that monogamy and long-running marriage are marks of "goodness" while relating outside of those institutions points to something "less than." Old cultural habits die hard. Never a single moment's thought that there is more of luck and skill to forming a long-lasting loving relationship; that it is not so much virtue as a sort of win in the great lottery of love and life. What amazing personal arrogance and hubris!



Whatever. I judge no one's relationship but my own, and that is very good indeed. I am exceptionally lucky. It wasn't always my luck to be partnered with a qualified and well-matched love, but the stars brought me to the right moment and the right people, and I am in exactly the right place -- not socially sanctioned but way better than my youthful and ill-advised "good" marriage that was so entirely horrible and dismal. I suspect that the smugness that is pouring forth at the moment is perhaps unconscious and not intended to come across the way it does to my ears. It is simply the way our society tends to look at this part of adult relating. Shrug. I believe that in time, we will stop valuing love based on who the partners are -- the longevity, the conventionality, the gender, or the numbers -- and come to see that love is a very great gift that ought to be celebrated wherever and whenever we manage to conjure it up.



swan

Modesty

As melissa so perceptively noted, I engage in the occasional contradiction. I think all kinds of things, about all manner of subjects, and much of the time I express opinions on topics about which I have little or no expertise. My opinions are not always tidy and they don't all fit neatly together in a coherent whole. I have a curious and restless mind, and it leads me to ponder across a wide range of ideas. I've been writing here for nearly five years, and I imagine if someone wanted to go on a hunt there are probably dozens and dozens of contradictions and reversals and plain old inconsistencies in my thinking. That is the fact. Mostly, being inconsistent and contradictory doesn't bother me in the least.

Today (without apology to melissa or anyone else), I am interested in trying to think my way through my own conflicted and inconsistent thinking on the subject of personal modesty. I may flatter myself that I am, in this regard, like many others in our society in that I have views and reactions around this idea that are all over the place.

So, what you might ask, and SOME surely will (in their very best snarky voices), does a woman who lives as "the other woman" in a polyamorous relationship, who on some sort of regular basis strips bare in public venues and engages in sadomasochistic "play," who frequently posts photos of her naked ass online -- what does a woman like that have to say about the concept of modesty? (and my good friends, who know better, are probably holding their heads and thinking -- "OMG! She probably has PLENTY to say; don't encourage her!")


I have a whole lot of "trained" into me notions and feelings about this subject -- many of them acquired long before I had the skills or sophistication to examine what was being taught to me.

I never saw either of my parents less than fully clothed. Even if I called out in the middle of the night, sick or frightened, the adult who would appear at my beside was always clad from head to toe in pajamas and a bathrobe. While I often helped to care for the baby brothers as they came along, and so came to know the realities of naked boy babies, once they reached toddlerhood and were no longer in diapers, they too vanished behind the veils of their clothes.

I was educated in Catholic schools in the 1960's. In those days, the teaching was that girls were "the near occasion of sin." It meant, simply, that my just being alive and female was enough to cause me to put some poor boy at risk for his immortal soul. We wore our heavy, scratchy, woolen school uniforms long enough to hit the floor when we knelt. Our blouses were, likewise, heavy, solid, respectable. No patent leather shoes -- they reflect up, after all. There was not one shred of that "sexy schoolgirl uniform" thing that fires the imaginations of some with a particular sort of fetish. By the time I was in 6th grade, we were taught to keep a section of the newspaper in our desks -- so that we could drape it over our laps when we sat, and thus further protect the poor, innocent, young men with whom we shared our classes.

There was little in the way of sex education for us in those days. We all understood that sex was "to be saved for marriage," and if we did not entirely understand what it was that we were saving for marriage, it seemed that suited the adults around us just fine. I proceeded into high school and on to college with only enough working knowledge of my own sexuality to allow me to manage the monthly menses with which I was "cursed." I knew I wasn't supposed to have sex before I was married, but with hardly any information and not a single viable argument or strategy, it was no surprise that I found myself pregnant at the age of 19, and married just a month before my 20th birthday... "Bless me father, for I have sinned?"

Well, the sex genie came roaring out of the bottle for me, and there was no stuffing the brazen fellow back in. What no one bothered to tell my poor little Catholic school self was that sex was fun, delicious, wondrous, intoxicating, and completely irresistable. I woke up sexually inside of a marriage that was really not ideal, but for a very, very long time, I managed to make it suffice. I was a faithful wife. Until I wasn't. But that's another conversation.

Along the way, I had other experiences that caused me to consider what I'd been taught about being "modest" as a child.

Very early on, following the births of my own children, I trained as a Lamaze childbirth educator and labor coach. I was privileged to guide hundreds of couples through the very sexually charged and very intimate process of preparing to give birth, and for dozens of them, I was called in to help coach through labor and delivery. I never lost my sense of complete wonderment at the awesome act of being born into this world. I've never ever had the slightest inclination toward lesbianism or bi-sexuality, but in those amazing hours spent with mothers giving birth, I loved the female form for all its beauty and all its strength. Most women, having given birth, especially in those pre-birthing-room days, would tell you that the process ripped every shred of modesty from them, but I wondered...

Later, when I was in my early 30's I discovered two other sources of great physical pleasure for me. A friend introduced me to Valley View Hot Springs in the southwest corner of Colorado. Valley View is a very rustic, clothing optional resort, and I spent many a blissful time there, basking in the warm waters under clear, blue skies and star-dazzled nights. There, I hiked and swam and pondered the natural world, wearing nothing but my shoes. Days spent naked and pure would send me back to my busy life refreshed, renewed, calm and centered. There, I never felt like "the near occasion of sin." In the high mountain air, I felt completely whole and good. Too, in those years, I would go every couple of months with a group of women friends to a local bath house. Built years before for the use of the local Orthodox Jewish community so that the women could go and perform their ritual cleansing after their monthy menstrual cycles, the bath house became a sanctuary of luxuriant warmth, relaxation and good company. The group of us, tall, skinny, voluptuous, saggy, would lounge together in the heat and the steam and chat and gossip without a single thought for the variances in our physical appearances. We simply rejoiced in being women together.

Years and years into my marriage, I finally found my way to the exploration of BDSM that has charted my course these last ten years or so. There was so very much that was new and unfamiliar in the beginning. I was often shocked, and taken aback by what I saw and what I read. I learned to observe carefully -- both the activity before my eyes, but also my own internal reactions and responses. I remember my first time playing outside my own home. I remember the first time I was spanked by anyone not my husband. I remember that very first trip to a public dungeon. I have very clear images of all the many times since that I have played in public places, and played in my own home with friends and guests. The sense I have of all of that is of power and truth and beauty and passion and triumph and great soaring joy. For all that there are those, even in this circle, who would paint that as somehow sordid and "immodest," it has none of that scintilla for me -- and I was there.

So. My views of modesty are shaded by my experiences; as are everyone's.

Each year, as part of my social studies curriculum, I teach my students (11 and 12 years old) about various cultures and countries around the world. As part of that, we annually encounter the practices of Judaism and Islam. In both cases, there is occsion to discuss the very different values in those cultures related to personal dress, and the connetion that those customs have to beliefs about personal modesty. For children raised in our American society, the notion that there might be some reason to choose to be less revealing and less provacative in one's dress is pretty foreign. Even our Catholic school kids have trouble wrapping their minds around that. It is a very long way from my youth spent with a newspaper draped over my knees...

Oddly, I find it intrigues my students to consider that they have the right and the ability to choose their "presentation" to the world. I insist to them that they are perfect and wonderful just the way they are, and that they do not need to buy into the constant drumbeat that tells them they must have the right jeans, or the right deodorant, or the right makeup, or the right logos on their clothes. Somehow, it seems to me that we have lost our way in thinking about "modesty," and when I am with my children it seems so entirely clear. To be modest is to value who and what you are. To be modest is to be willing to celebrate the beauty and strength of your personhood, to care for it, to protect it, to share it with generosity and integrity, and to come away at the end of each encounter with other humans feeling enriched and knowing that you have been a great gift to them as well.

We have allowed the conversation about modesty to be co-opted by religion, and in doing that, we've lost the ability to talk sensibly about it. We drown in media messages full of sex for sale and general vulgarity and bad taste, and unless we are willing to side with those who would impose the burqha or the veil, we find ourselves with nothing at all to say. That is a very great sadness for each of us, for our children, and for our world. How much better it would be if we could see the human form as entirely "proper" and "good." How much better if we could universally teach our children what they need to know to grow into full possession of themselves and the bodies they inhabit -- giving them the power, all of their lives, to choose wisely for themselves.

swan

Autumn is My Favorite Season

The trees off my patio are in their full autumn glory. This is a phenomenon that was barely a blip in my Colorado days. To see "fall" color in the Rocky Mountains, one had to travel up into the high country to see the displays created by the changing of the aspen against the pines and spruce. So, each year, when this magical splendor splashes itself across the landscape, I find myself fascinated and filled with something joyful and childlike. This morning, as the sun caught in the leaves, I couldn't resist the urge to take some photos. My poor skills don't do it any kind of justice, but I hope somewhere each of you have a tree that is purely magical as this one...

swan

Wanting Spanking

I am still sick. Better but definitely still sick -- weak and achy and coughing my lungs out.

One of the odd things about me is that when I am feeling ill; when I am feverish and everything hurts -- I seem to want His touch more than ever. It grows into a hunger that fills my mind waking and sleeping.

Of course, since we suspect that what I have is H1N1, we've been trying to follow the advice of professionals that those who are well should stay away from those who are ill. It's a little silly -- we live in the same house and sleep in the same bed, after all, but we've worked to minimize the physical proximity -- no kisses, no hugging, no snuggling, no hand holding. It has been a week of Him on His side and me on mine.

For days now, all I've wanted is to lie across His lap on the sofa. Just that. Since we embarked on our current exploration of OTK spanking following the acquisition of the leather sofa last spring, I have come to associate being there over His lap with safety and security. In these days of feeling ill, it is all I've wanted.

So, last night, around 5PM, I went to Him, and in my very weak, very tiny, very needy littlest voice, I asked if He might have some time during the evening when I could just lie down across His lap. I assured Him that He didn't have to do anything at all, and I promised I wouldn't breathe on Him ... just please?

He laughed and assured me that He was happy to oblige and that I could get spanked too. He even went and collected some paddles to use in the event.

There was just one hitch. Callie the housecat OWNS the middle of the couch -- the cushion in between "His" end and mine. He was reluctant to move the cat out of her spot, and so we sat and watched the TV and petted the cat.

And then it was time for T to come home; time for dinner.

After dinner, T told Him that she wanted some of His time -- wanted to snuggle. She went off to read her e-mail, and then came back, ready for Him. They headed off to the bedroom, and I headed to the kitchen to clean up from dinner. I sat and surfed the web for awhile -- reading here and there.

And then it was bedtime, and He was very sleepy, and wrapped up in the baseball game.

Today, I'm still sick, still home from school. He's got a ridiculous schedule and an evening board meeting. He'll be home late tonight and out early tomorrow and again on Saturday. Sometimes, even when everyone wants a thing -- life conspires.

swan