Careers a Spanko Ought Not Choose
Scenology — By Adele on 9 November, 2006 8:41 pmEvery time a scandal breaks out over another politician caught dressed in schoolboy’s shorts, with a cane-striped bum, part of me wants to scream at him – what were you thinking, going into politics when you’re kinky? It’s mean, I suppose: people of the pre-Internet generation sometimes spent years discovering their inclinations and feelings. By the time these folks figured out that there was a real-life outlet for their desires, they were set in their sensitive, scandal-prone careers.
Before my first professional party Lucy warned me that there would be several guys there whose jobs would be on the line were a word of their activities to slip out, and to keep my lips zipped about who I saw there. (I didn’t need the warning to know that I shouldn’t mention anybody even by their false name, but I thought it was responsible of her to warn me.)
I was lucky in that I found the spanking scene when I was still a kid. Now, when I go about choosing a career track, I can consciously avoid occupations where being kinky may destroy me professionally.
Losing some of the opportunities doesn’t bother me: I’ll never be a politician, but so what; I can’t safely be a senior civil service person, and the church isn’t probably the best option for me, but it’s not something I would have chosen, anyway.
However, I will also never risk being a teacher, even though I’d be good at it. I know I’m not a threat to kids, but the lynch mob won’t, and neither will the education authority.
It wouldn’t be wise to become a magistrate, as much as I’d enjoy doing it.
Come to think of it (quite apart from the education and work involved in this), I’ll never be a judge, either.
Sometimes I think – oh, it would be OK, but then I imagine the headlines: “Magistrate in Porn Scandal”, “The Schoolgirl Judge”. The jobs are not worth the public humiliation. I’m not into humiliation on the whole, you know, particularly the non-consensual kind.
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11 Comments
Hi Adele – funny you should bring this up. Back when my
then-boyfriend-now-husband and I were still
in college I asked him if he would
ever consider running for president. To my suprise, he said, well, no, I couldn’t be a
president because of the potentially-scandalous kinky private life we lead, that a kinky
guy cannot be a president of a country founded by puritans. Had this been back in my
native East, then the story would have been different. Just consider president Putin’s
joke about the Israeli president being accused of rape: he said (not for everyone to hear) something like “Israeli president is a ‘real’ man and we all envy him”.
Yes, I was young once, I think.
I always thought spanko MPs enjoyed the thrill of a double life.
You make very good points, Adele. It seems like certain careers were made to derail one’s kinky lifestyle. Besides politics and teaching, I would think anyone in any sort of religious field is at huge risk.
I am a freelance proofreader/copyeditor. I work from home, so I have no boss and I answer to no one, and my work is low-key and low profile. So far, I haven’t had any problems.
And it’s SO much fun teasing tops when they use poor grammar/spelling. :-D — Erica
Yes indeed, I know a woman who is an avid spankee and she is working on a degree and has hopes of working in politics. She could be in for a shock. A female lawyer friend of mine, not into spanking but was turned down for a judgeship on account of her much earlier biker connections. It can be a slippery slope.
Amber – Your guy sounds far too wise to even want to be a president :)
Eayore – I’m sure the MPs have an awesome time, until they get exposed in the News of the World ;)
Erica – Your job sounds perfect for the lifestyle. Good for you to arrange your life to fit with your kink, not the other way around. (I take it, if you were a super-hero, your super-power would be Grammar of Doom? ;) )
Michael David – Hmm, the biker connection is an interesting one. Arguably, it’s harder to cover up than the spanking kink… The question is, though: who would want to cover up their kink all their life?
I am a teacher! Where I work (at an unnamed, progressive non-profit) my private life would not cause me to be fired should it surface; however, said circumstances would make it IMPOSSIBLE to control my class. It’s a delicate situation, but I have little fear of being exposed as kinky. I am convinced, though, that last week a coworker was trying to out me. I’ll be the first to admit that it’s shameful (to me) to not be completely out at work considering all of the work I did/do in the GLBT community, but there you have it.
Kris
It’s sad that society is not as open-minded as we would like. There is an increasing trend toward perrmissiveness of “ordinary” heterosexual sexuality (heterosexuality?), but at the same time an increasingly vocal societal phobia toward kinky sex. There used to be a certain amount of “don’t ask, don’t tell” but the collective societal paradox is becoming too much for many.
Part of this is, I think, to do with the increasing numbers of people in positions of trust who are being outed by the media, although I not necessarily for being spankos. The whole men (it’s usually men) behaving badly thing makes good news but is bad press for anybody who is different, because they are tarred with the same simplistic brush: if you’re not like us, you must be like them.
I thought I’d add that my husband is a highschool teacher (at a private school), and I used to be as well, and the whole family is highly conservative Catholics, so no, we wouldn’t ever want this to surface in anyway, nor would I want my children to know when they are old enough to understand (which means cutting down on the action significantly), although it’s not going to be an ultimate disaster since it’s happening in the context of marriage and not in any way outside it. In my whole history the only person who wasn’t my boyfriends that found out was a college friend who overlooked me looking at kinky stuff online and has teased me back in college when I was reading Nietzsche (you know the quote, my husband likes to repeat it too – going to see a woman? bring your whip!) Ironically, that friend with whom I went to school overseas happend to live only two hours away from me where I live now, and we keep in touch and get together quite a bit, so he has teased me on couple more ocasions about being kinky, but I am fine with it.
Perhaps it’s true that people who are kinky should not choose a life in the
public eye. But I think that we all think of our professional lives and
personal lives as separate. So I do have sympathy for people who want
to choose a career that appeals to them, regardless of whether they are
kinky. In a better world we would not have to worry about this.
I think that you would never want to have a secret that someone could
blackmail you for. My wife knows everything about my sexuality and what
I do on-line. I’d rather not have my sexual life directly associated with my
professional life, but if I had to, I could live with it.
Wintermute
Kris – I hadn’t even thought about the complications that would arise in a teacher’s carreer if the students found out about their kinky life. Dealing with the bosses is hard enough. *shudders* I don’t think not living openly is shameful: sure, it’s nice to be the sainted martyr of the Kinkdom, suffer for your ideals and the like, but venturing outside your comfort zone before you’ve calculated the risks, planned your strategy, and are sure you can cope with – it just wouldn’t be wise.
Robert – Actually, I have this secret hope that the more people are discovered to have kinky sexual lives, the less outrage it will provoke in the future. That said, I’d rather they were not “discovered” in the sense of being outed, but rather came out comfortably and openly. Which is not going to happen. But one could hope…
Amber – Well done for guarding your secrets so well. It seems like your friend is interested enough in the kinky goings on to keep mentioning them – perhaps you can just tease him back about that.
Wintermute – It’s a good point about being blackmailed. I have every sympathy with people who don’t wish their kinkiness to influence their career options, but choosing a career that is not blackmail-prone just ultimately saves a lot of headache.
Oh no. I didn’t mean I’m not out as kinky at work. (I’m not btw.) I *meant* that one of my coworkers was trying to out me as *queer*. Granted, my sexuality at work isn’t a secret, I just choose not to mention my partner to certain coworkers. It’s just frustrating. Sorry for the confusing comment. It’s been a long week.
Kris