A spanking blogger once more, or what I did during my sabbatical

I’m not sure where the hell to start this post, so I’ll start with the conclusion: I got the cane the other day, as a punishment for a flaw I had requested help with eliminating. The caning hurt, but no more than my pride did for having earned it in the first place. Then I felt better. Then I decided to write a blog post about it.

The paragraph above reads like something I’ve written many times before, but both the event and the decision to blog about it were a novelty to me. Because I hadn’t wanted to be punished for real-life things for a long time, and now I do again. Because my ally in this exercise is Jimmy, for whom a discipline dynamic is a curious new beast he’s exploring at my instigation, rather than a deep-seated kink. Because I haven’t done a stitch of blogging since September, after having blogged at least every other day for over five years. Because my life is so different now than it was less than half a year ago, that I wonder how I can recognise these fingers that are falling on the keys in front of me.

Far from the thought that everybody in the world follows my every move with bated breath, I’m going to give you a short digest of recent events, which can both get you up to speed with where I am, and set the backdrop for the punishment caning that is, after all, the point of this post.

September: Ask husband for a break. Move out with one suitcase, one cat and £600 to my name. Agree to promise not to say a word about it on the Internet; regret the promise instantly because suddenly I’m unable to blog or tweet truthfully about what I’m doing without raising questions. Arrange a room-in-exchange-for-work agreement with a friend’s business, where my boyfriend Jimmy is also living. Lose room and work because of the business going down; receive an offer of floor space from a friend’s friend, move again, this time to the outskirts of London.
October: Sleep on a single mattress in a tiny room with the cat’s litter tray at my feet. Frantically apply for office jobs while trying to stay on top of freelance obligations. Die of sexual frustration due to lack of a bed or any privacy. Turn 32. Go dancing all night for the first time ever. Have mind-blowing sex with Jimmy’s other girlfriend Shona (she has a bed). Come down with a chest infection. Recover in time to win a month-long freelance contract with obligatory office hours. Help Jimmy move house (he now also has a bed). Help Shona temporarily move into Jimmy’s place (down to one bed between three again). Feel isolated. Feel lonely. Feel furious at being unable to express myself through blogging. Prefer this anyway.
November: Commute for 3 hours a day to freelance job; work on existing freelance commitments in the evenings. Help Shona move house (yay, two beds again). Shona asks me to be her girlfriend. Jimmy stretches his dominant muscles. I can’t remember when I’ve last had more than one waking hour off. Bite the bullet and tell Abel I’m not coming back; wait for him to be comfortable to make the break-up public knowledge. Could now, in theory, blog again, but can barely see straight for fatigue. Get contract extended.
December: Work days, work evenings. Look for a place to live. Transfer my entire pay to an estate agent and acquire a flat with two bedrooms: one for Jimmy, one for me. Move house; help Jimmy move house. Enjoy having a door and a bed. Pick up my stuff from Abel’s house in a manoeuvre that requires shoving my entire life into a van in two hours. Lose most of the memory of that evening; go to work the next day. Finish contract. Stop functioning for a week. Jimmy has surgery. Reluctantly return Shona to her family for a few days; survive Christmas. Jimmy turns 28. See in 2012; dance all night, have lots of sex, play guitar. Start thinking about blogging.

And so we return to the issue of the punishment caning.

One day I let Jimmy and Shona know that I was going to spend a few hours working on my blog.  They made all the right encouraging noises, and I settled at a desk to write.

Here are some of the things I did instead: read Twitter, read FandomWank, read LiveJournal, read some more Twitter while clicking every single link and checking out all the retweeted profiles, watch some Dreams of Spanking movies and read comments on all the scenes. You will notice that none of these activities have in any way involved any writing. When Jimmy finally asked me how the blogging was going, all I could say was, “Errr… FandomWank is great.”

“Would you like some help with that?” he asked. In our relationship this question has developed a new meaning: would you like to give me the authority to make you do this, under the threat of punishment?

Yes, I did.

Subsequently, Shona named the series of exchanges that followed “The Jimmy and Adele Show”. It had dialogues like:

Jimmy: “Put down the summary of all the paragraphs you’re going to write.”
Adele: “Can I finish reading this LiveJournal thread?”
Jimmy: “You can, after you’re done.”

and

Jimmy, from *another room*: “Your word processor looks very similar to your FireFox skin.”
Adele: “…”
Jimmy: “Go on, you can do it. Extend the first summary into a paragraph.”
Adele: “WHY DO YOU HATE FUN?”

The cajoling worked for a while, but the post I was writing – the stupidly long essay about the R v. Peacock trial – was a complex beast. I needed to find a selection of articles to link to, some choice tweets, some news items. I kept taking Twitter breaks; these kept getting longer. Finally Jimmy told me that I was to stay off Twitter until further notice.

I tried. I tried so hard, you may have seen steam of the effort coming out of my ears. When I succumbed to temptation in the end, it didn’t even feel very good. I was so ashamed that I barely skimmed a few tweets, and went back to writing straight away, but my heart was heavy with self-disappointment.

I wondered whether to tell him, or to wait until I was asked. I decided I would tell, but not right away, because by this time we’d broken off for dinner, and I didn’t want the entire evening to be about me. I told Shona though. She doesn’t have a punishment kink (as far as we know), but she’s been cheer-leading me through my efforts with the understanding of somebody who’d looked writing block in the face before. She offered me a hug and much sympathy, and it felt better not to carry my guilt around all on my own.

I made my confession the following morning, sick with shame. Jimmy was all sympathy, but sentenced me to a stroke per tweet I’d read, anyway. We’d been experimenting with discipline for several months by then, and he tends to save corporal punishment for a last resort. He’d used it only twice before. The fact that he saw it as necessary now very nearly brought me to tears: it was this, not the eventual caning, that felt like the lowest point of the entire episode.

This didn’t make the writing any easier; I ended up earning twenty-five strokes in total over the course of the day, but at least, eventually, the post was done. And then the caning was done, with me lying flat on the bed with a corner of a pillowcase between my teeth. It felt natural and okay: not a judgement on me as a person, not a pretext for either of us getting off; just a friendly favour, albeit a painful one.

And this was how I came back to being a spanking blogger.

Obscenity trial: R v Peacock and the false dawn of the pornographers

Things the #ObscenityTrial have taught me: assume
a higher level of general ignorance & prejudice about BDSM
than I had previously thought. (@electronic_doll)

Browsing spanking forums, you sometimes come across the sentiment that these days the world at large is quite tolerant and accepting of alternative sexualities. While this statement is impossible to prove either right or wrong – have you ever tried asking “the world at large” its opinion? – From time to time we can’t fail but be reminded that we are not yet living in the fluffy sex-positive paradise of our Twitter and Fetlife feeds.

FACT: Some types of spanking and BDSM are still illegal in the UK, according to precedent set by R v Brown (“the Spanner case”). While it’s unlikely that the police will raid your David Copperfield-themed house party, they can, because in a sexual context consent is not a defence against a charge of assault causing actual bodily harm.

FACT: An escort and porn-maker Michael Peacock (known charmingly as Sleazy Michael) last week stood trial for producing DVDs that featured certain sex scenes between consenting adults. None of the acts were illegal to perform in private, but, according to the prosecution, they fell under the legal definition of obscene materials, so into the dock Mr Peacock went.

If you live in the UK and spend any time on Twitter, you already know what happened next: the jury of Mr Peacock’s peers spent several days watching footage of whipping, fisting, watersports and CBT, and then, after a deliberation lasting less time than a leisurely BDSM scene, returned the verdict of “not guilty”. But I’m also guessing that quite a few of you haven’t heard of this case, because it’s had quite modest coverage by mainstream news outlets – a footnote rather than any kind of core issue.

Most of the mainstream media commentary has come after the trial’s end. From my left-wing Twitter bubble, the pieces that have been the most visible are the ones that approve of the acquittal and question whether the Obscene Publications Act, 1959 – the law according to which the prosecution had been brought – is fit for purpose in this day and age, in New Statesman, the Guardian and Yahoo News.

It’s the last link that I’d like to bring to your attention, because of the comments you find under the article. After the lovely time the whole of Twitter had had bashing the prosecutors on the #obscenitytrial hashtag, you get quite a shock to the system learning that -

“When we make obscenity the norm we have hit rock bottom and there is only one way to go, do we realy want filth as an every day occurence, do we want our children to think it’s ok to swear fornicate and generaly live a degrading existance, soddam and gomoragh spring to mind” (Anonymous commenter, 32 likes and 8 dislikes at the time of writing);

and that -

“We are existing in a depraved and corrupted society. That said, it is of no surprise that levels of acceptability are in line with low-life corruption, depravity and pornography.” (Stewart, 8 likes, 1 dislike).

Now, reading comments on Yahoo is a special kind of self-torture, and a film of the process could stand a good chance to be prosecuted under the extreme porn legislation, but it doesn’t do anyone any good to try and think them out of existence. Your Twitter feed is not yet an indication of any sort of general consensus.

That said, there’s been some amusing things scrolling past me in the feeds:

Farcical #ObscenityTrial seeking to ban supposedly “depraving” videos involves, err, showing the videos to the jury. Will it deprave them? – @wallaceme

An excellent question, also frequently raised in relation to the UK censoring body BBFC: if certain material has the potential to “deprave and corrupt” the viewer, as per the obscenity legislation, do censors and juries become corrupt after watching a certain volume of obscene material, and do they therefore need regularly swapping out, like equipment damaged by wear and tear?

If it’s illegal to distribute DVDs of gay fisting #obscenitytrial I spy a gap in the market for live theatre shows. – @Andrew_Taylor

Pause as your narrator stops to fantasise about the possibilities.

Reading up on #ObscenityTrial and wishing I was a criminal law academic. Lack of BDSM cases in corporate finance law. – @lawvaughan

This made me smile with sympathy. Imagine my frustration, as a law post-grad, at needing to concentrate on the fair trial cases when in the very next chapter, in the privacy chapter, there was an amazing wealth of things I could read about the Spanner case.

And speaking of the Spanner case:

With the good result in #ObscenityTrial, is our culture now ready to reverse R v Brown? – @rebellionkid

A pertinent question, and one very much of interest to us in the spanking scene. It is, I think, telling that nobody was prosecuted for the acts in Peacock’s DVDs, even though to an uninformed observer they look comparable to the acts in Spanner. (Here, pumping the testicles with saline. There, nailing testicles to a board. From my non-testicle-wearing point of view, these are beasts from the same species, if not necessarily the same genus.) Don’t get too excited, though, because according to Myles Jackman aka @obscenitylawyer, quoted in “Solicitors Journal”, the Law Commission “wasn’t able to say whether it would undertake a review of sexual consent to assault laws”. And why would it, when it doesn’t have to? Imagine trying to sell that change in the law to the Daily Fail readers, without the iron-clad excuse of “the jury made us do it”.

While the Peacock case isn’t precedent-setting, in the world of laws regulating porn a change now seems inevitable. Without wishing to create a hierarchy of fetishes wherein one thing is pervier than the next, fisting, ball-busting and watersports are pretty niche. If they can’t bring a guilty verdict, it doesn’t leave much for the vice officers to rely on for their bread-and-butter obscenity convictions. The Guardian believes The Obscene Publications Act “to be on its last legs”, and the Solicitors Journal piece mentioned above promises a review of enforcement guidance.

Now, is this all cause for celebration?

For Michael Peacock, undoubtedly. For porn producers, quite possibly, because, in the words of Jane Fae, “it is fear of prosecution that keeps many film-makers in check and, with the OPA now looking very much “busted flush” – the end, and possibly a new beginning, are very much on the cards.” We in the BDSM scene bubble may well celebrate with them – for a while. Don’t forget, though, the new “extreme porn” law, which is alive, well, and according to the same article by Jane Fae, is responsible for around 1000 prosecutions a year: “this represents a big shift in legal thinking, away from the idea that the publisher, as part of a business enterprise, is likely to be better advised legally and so more responsible for what he or she produces, and toward the consumer, for whom no excuse (including accidental downloading of material) will now suffice.” The consumer: this would be any of you, I’m afraid. I know you wouldn’t knowingly download any extreme porn, but the warm and righteous feeling of being innocent is not much consolation when your boss rings you up because she saw your name in the newspaper, but she can’t get through because you’re on the phone to BastardLoanSharks.com trying to find the cash to cover solicitors’ fees.

You may have noticed that up until now I haven’t mentioned that Peacock’s DVDs featured, only and specifically, acts between gay men. Regardless of the equality laws – and without wanting to make assumptions about the personal prejudices of the jury – one could be excused for thinking that this could have turned out badly for Peacock, just like it had for Brown et al in Spanner. But you know what, I think in this specific instance the all-male cast has probably saved the defence’s case.

Take this précis of the summing up:

Prosecution: “This man is in a great deal of pain. Look at his gaping anus. The scene depicts rape. This is obscene.” Defence: “This man is an actor performing in a fantasy.” Jury: “Not guilty.” (Based on live tweets from the courtroom by @lexingtondymock and @NichiHodgson).

I would argue that if the questioned acts had been visited upon women, this defence wouldn’t have necessarily flown: from my observations, men are seen as more capable of consenting to violent acts, inflicted by either men or women. Far from being hobbled by homophobia, Peacock has inadvertently and unconsciously benefited from the absence of the patronising overprotective attitude towards female actors.

But that’s just guesswork and grumbling. What we do have is a non-guilty verdict for an innocent man, and a hint of positive legal change in the air. A great day for lawyers and pornographers alike. Do let’s enjoy it in our scene bubble.

And yet: remember Spanner. Remember the standard of proof required in “extreme porn” cases. Don’t grow complacent, because they fucking won’t.

Lurking in dark corners

Are you out there? Are you lurking?

It feels a little like I’m also lurking on my own blog. I didn’t want to miss the Love Our Lurkers day engineered by Bonnie, because I know only too well how difficult it is to say something for the first time to a blogger you don’t know. Except you kind of feel like you do, because you’ve been reading for ages, but really you don’t, and…

Anyway. Talk to me. Today, or any day.

Let’s make it easier to start. What blogs have you enjoyed recently? Spanking, or otherwise?

I must admit to an unholy obsession with Pervocracy, where Holly writes things like:

(a quote from Cosmo): “Use your underwear as a scrunchie.”

Either no one can tell that it’s underpants, in which case it’s not doing that much to spice up your love life, or everyone can tell that it’s underpants, in which case I wholly support this plan and would love to see lots of Cosmo girls doing it in public because I could use that kind of entertainment.

Be a down-south dominatrix… with yourself. Touch your lady parts through your underwear in front of him.

So now we have this week’s “can anyone explain the connection between these two sentences?” challenge.  I guess it’s because to Cosmo “dominatrix” is a generic word meaning “sexy woman of some sort,” and touching yourself, wow, that’s pretty sexy?

Now tell me your favourite blogs.

By the way, if you’re a blogger, and never read anybody else’s blogs, you’re a jackass.

(Damn, there goes my chance at convincing you that it’s safe to delurk. Er…)

Oh, sod it. Talk to me, lurkers!

E-lust – 30

Welcome to e[lust] - Your source for sexual intelligence and inspirations of lust from the smartest & sexiest bloggers! Whether you’re looking for hot steamy smut, thought-provoking opinions or expert information, you’re going to find it here. Want to be included in e[lust] #31? Start with the rules, check out the schedule and subscribe to the RSS feed for updates!

~ This Week’s Top Three Posts ~

Crotch Topiary & Other Delights – I admit I started simple, I realised my teenage dream of having a Winona-inspired heart emblazoned on my mound. It was perfect. I used Contact paper to design my heart and just went to town pulling out every hair that was not covered.

In Defense of Exclusion – Sometimes it’s nice to be with people who are like you. It’s nice to be around people who get your kink, your fetish – to be somewhere that you don’t have to explain it to.

The Boy At Summer Camp – It started with an email with the subject line ‘butch at your service,’ and an offer for a blow job. And I thought, hm. Well, you know, I do like those. But I’m not usually attracted to boys.

~ e[lust] Editress ~

Ask Lilly: “My sex toy stinks – what should I do?” – Would you put it in your mouth with that smell? Would you gag from the smell and taste? If yes, then why the hell put it in your vagina or ass??

~ Featured Post (Lilly’s Pick) ~

A Day At The Circus

(more…)

To munch or not to munch?

We know how the standard advice to spanking and BDSM newbies goes, right? To meet people to play with, get thee to a munch. It doesn’t matter if you’re shy, antisocial, poor or privacy-conscious: in order to dip your toes into the local scene, you must consume a certain amount of alcohol in the company of other perverts. It’s the only way. Off to a munch with you.

Now, from the snark quotient in the paragraph above you may conclude that I don’t like the idea of munches. No, no, I do. They obviously work really well, or there wouldn’t be so bloody many of them. I want to be one of the people for whom munches work so well. I long to love munches.

They don’t love me, though.

Here’s the sad, twisted story of my unrequited love affair with munches.

My first one was a spanking munch in a small town near where I used to live in the North-East. Let me list the grand-total of all attendees at that one, other than Mr Haze and I: the organiser, an I’m-sure-he’s-not-always-that-boring older gent, and the latter’s I’m-sure-she’s-fascinating-if-she’d-only-bloody-ever-speak wife. That was it. The conversation was so painfully strained, I was longing to safe-word my way out of it. Not that it would have helped, because a couple of months later it turned out that the organiser of the munch had a history of not respecting women’s safewords. And here was me, trying not to be sniffy about his dirty mac.

Then there was a general BDSM munch in a bigger city quite a drive away. This was well-attended, well-organised and clearly well-loved by the locals, judging by the fact that everybody bloody knew each other by this point, and you know how much fun it is to be in a room of 70 people who know one another, with an occasional newcomer here and there. There was a party game, oh yes: each person was supposed to write down a yet unfulfilled fantasy and throw the piece of paper into a hat, and then everybody in the room was supposed to guess whose fantasy this was. Have a guess at how much of a chance I stood of guessing secret fantasies of complete bloody strangers, or for them to guess mine.

Then there was a lovely spanking munch in Scotland. This was small enough to be manageable, yet big enough to have plenty of interesting people in it. Everybody was great. I knew several people from spanking forums, and had looked forward to meeting them. What a shame, then, that I sat at the end of the table, and the only person whose conversation I could hear over the pub music was one of the friends I’d come with in the first place. (Who also kept calling me by my real name: something guaranteed to send me into a killing rage.)

Skip several years, during which the only way to get me to a munch would have been to invite the munch into my living-room. In the meantime, I somehow managed to make lots of new scene friends, none of whom seemed to mind that we hadn’t met in a pub to start with. Funny how that worked.

Anyway, a group of girlfriends lured me to this supposedly wonderful BDSM munch in London that they all went to all the time. Well, call it a glitch, but this particular time it turned out mind-crushingly boring. Pretty much all of the painfully cool people around the big table were into all sorts of arcane fetishes and practices none of us knew anything about, and nobody at all wanted to talk about spanking. The four of us bailed after an hour, and instead went to one of the girls’ house, where her husband generously spanked us all. That was much better.

You may have guessed where this post is leading. I’m actually contemplating going to a munch again. Not even contemplating, really: I’ve definitely decided I’m going. The London Under35 Kinky Drinkies has an excellent reputation, and I know a couple of people who go, so I’m guaranteed to have at least two conversations over the course of the evening. (More if I manage to sweet-talk some friends into coming with me.) Anyway, I’m older and wiser now, and I’m definitely due a positive munch experience.

I think.

I hope.

Yes, definitely.