My Journey: Virtual Deviance

Although I avoided typical sexual exploration during my teen years, I explored another avenue: online. Of course, at the time I did not connect my spanking interest with my sexuality, so this exploration was perhaps not what you might expect.

When I was fifteen, my parents bought me a laptop and ran a phone line into my bedroom to provide an internet connection. I'm old enough that this was both highly unusual and well before the public was aware of the danger minors could find online. My older siblings had sold my parents on the wonders of email communication, so we had an internet connection at home before my school had a connection.

I started with all the searches I had been unable to complete on the family computer. This quickly led me to A.S.S. and later S.S.S - boards full of spanking stories. From there, I found several sites that collected or published stories. And, of course, I found Shadowlane and began to dream about attending a spanking party.

But I also spend hours playing on a MUSH (multi-user shared hallucination), a text-based roleplaying game similar to a MUD (multi-user dungeon). I was active on several different vanilla MUSHes, based on my favorite fantasy books at the time. Of course, in these flexible environments, I found a few people interested in roleplaying other types of interactions.

I developed a "relationship" with one of those people. He described himself as a boy near my age, perhaps a bit older. He would roleplay spanking me. In exchange, we would also roleplay scenes in which he would nurse from me. I couldn't imagine why he wanted to do this, but I also hadn't met anyone who had my reaction to spanking, so I went along with it. I still didn't think of this as sexual. The spanking roleplays we enacted were just fun, exciting stories I told with another person.

I wanted to meet him, eventually. But to do that, I had to explain to my mother where I had met this person. She put the kabosh on that idea right quick. She may not have had a clue about internet safety, but my mother had a healthy dose of common sense. This discussion was also the second step in outing myself to my mother - I allowed her to read some of the exchanges. She was disturbed by the spanking scenes we had written, but not the nursing scenes. This was memorable, but I refuse to think any further about it.

During my senior year, I found Adult Friend Finder. There, I found someone interested primarily in spanking. We talked for a long time. During the summer after my senior year, I decided I would meet him in person. I asked my oldest sister to act as my safe call. Unfortunately, she changed her mind and I decided not to meet him at that time.

Three months later, I met him without the safety of a safe call. While I certainly wouldn't recommend that method to anyone, it worked out fine for me. I had my first spanking. We've gotten together several times over the years. He's still one of my dearest friends.

My Journey: BOLD 2014

This jumps ahead a bit in the story of my journey in the lifestyle, but I'm going to share something I wrote about the upcoming event, BOLD 2014. This is cross-posted (with a few edits) from FetLife.

I’ve run the gamut in my exploration of lifestyle and kink – I’ve attended local and national spanking parties, I’ve explored swinging parties and visited swinger’s resorts, I enjoy my local dungeon and I’ve tried leather events like Thunder in the Mountains.

But if I had to limit myself to only one conference this year, that one would be BOLD.

Because, I identify as MDHL. No – I’m not male, I’m not dominant, and I’m not, even primarily, heterosexual.

But MDHL is my primary relationship. MDHL defines my family-of-choice. (MDH describes my family of blood, in all positive ways, for whatever that’s worth.) MDHL is my lifestyle. And some version of poly / MDHL is my fantasy for the future.

And at BOLD, I found an acceptance of all of those things that is absent in the other places I’ve looked. You can read about last year here . At BOLD, I found new friends struggling with the very issues that bother me the most. I learned new strategies for problems I hadn’t recognized yet. I discovered an energy and an acceptance I hadn’t found anyplace else.

And that’s why I am looking forward to BOLD this year.

If you'd like more information about BOLD, you can find BOLD on Facebook or the BOLD website.

A New Plan

I haven't forgotten this blog - but I've been rather fully distracted of late. Moving to California has been an enormous adjustment, but I feel like things are starting to settle down a bit (maybe, fingers crossed). Craig and I post weekly on Black & Blue, and I've decided a schedule here would help. So I've come up with a new plan.

I'm going to make it a priority to post twice weekly. On Monday, an essay about a spanking topic. On Friday, a spanking story from a picture in Craig's collection. It isn't a New Year's Resolution, but it is a goal.

I'm going to update my blog list as well. I hope to have enough time to find a few new blogs as well.

Random Searches

No, I haven't gone so far into my studies that I've decided to bore you with a Fourth Amendment lecture. In fact, as a distraction to all that, I rather randomly decided to look at my blog stats. I stumbled upon the search terms that have brought visitors to my blog.

The most common term this week: [honeymoon blogs] - I can only imagine their surprise! I suppose it's the Brittanic Honeymoon series of stories that brought them here, but I cannot believe they were looking for a spanking blog...

A search I'm considering trying myself: ["his finger slid into her tight"] - I'm curious how many results that would have and if any of the other results are kinky. At least anyone making that search should expect adult content.

Other searchers have very specific tastes.

Take, for example, this one: ["tormenting * breasts" nipples -movies] - I do have several stories that might fit, and there are no movies here.

But for a specific search that fits my blog, this one is pretty good: ["supple leather belt" "her panties"] - there's another search I'd consider doing myself. And it has a higher likelihood that I would find something I'd enjoy.

The Fight

Just a short story...

It was an argument born of alcohol and exhaustion, the sort of fight that escalated unreasonably and would evaporate in an instant if they thought about it. But when they pulled into the parking lot, they were both wrapped up in the fight, the anger, the hurt. She sat perfectly still, lost in her head. He circled the car and opened the door.

She turned to look at him, but her eyes looked through him - unfocused, locked on a distant, unseen point. His words washed over her like so many unrelated syllables, refusing to order themselves into words with meaning. She might even have responded automatically, shaking her head or even answering in a flat, unnatural voice.

He fought back anger and frustration, recognizing the signs this time. She had shut down, in that odd way she had; seemingly responsive, she was on the verge of withdrawing into a ball of tears and sobs. He took several deep breaths. He leaned into the car, grabbing her wrist and squeezing tight. It took a moment longer than usual - a hesitation as she was drawn out of the scary place in her head and back into this moment - but her breath hissed out of her, deflating as she did in response to his touch.

"We are going inside," he growled, giving her wrist another squeeze to emphasize his command, "You can walk or..."

She was climbing out of the car before he could complete the threat. In the room, his words washed over her again, meaningless sounds. He laid his hand on her bare arm, her eyes snapped to his. "You don't even know what we were fighting about, do you?"

"Not..." the word stuttered out of her mouth, "Not really."

He made a frustrated sound and pushed her into the corner, "Then you can stand there until you want to talk, or I'm ready to talk."

- - -

He sat on the sofa; she was curled up in his lap. They spoke quietly, the anger gone from the fight, evaporated as quickly as spilled vodka.

New Additions

I've added a few pages to my blog, most of them with links to groups of stories I've posted here.  Because the majority of my posts ARE stories, I hope this will make my stories easier to find and follow.  Of course, if you've read them already, I encourage you to comment on your favorites - as that might help entice me back to writing on a series I've abandoned.

Do tell me what you think of the layout - if it's helpful or what would make it more helpful.  I'm still finding my way around this blogging thing.

I'll do my best to update the pages when I add new stories.  Speaking of which, I must get back to Obadiah.

Love Our Lurker Day (a day late)

I'm a day late to join the LOL Day, started by Bonnie - my tardiness will come at no surprise to anyone who knows me.  It's a day when spanking and kink blogs encourage their lurkers (and other readers) to post a comment.

If you're writing your first comment, it need not be long or complicated; as a blogger, it is wonderful to receive any comment, even the shortest, shyest comments.  Take the plunge, leave a comment.

Playing Hard

Inspired by Indy's post about playing at and expanding her limits, I started thinking about what it is that allows me to endure a hard scene.  Indy describes most of her breakthroughs in tolerance as occurring when she isn't aware of the intensity at which she is playing.  That hasn't been my experience at all.

In fact, when I am surprised by the intensity of a scene, I am less able to handle it.  The only scene (at least in recent memory) that I had to safeword out of was like this.  The top was using a leather paddle that I happen to love, one I have played with and enjoyed at all intensities.  But, I was expecting a light bedtime spanking.  When that wasn't what I got,  I couldn't process it.  I wasn't able to give myself over to the pain, to relax into it.

For me, a startle like that is akin to stubbing my toe - a sharp, unexpected pain that will have me on the floor in tears, much to the bewilderment of anyone who knows me.  As another example of this, I enjoyed a very intense scene at the very end of the Back to School party hosted by FMS last fall.  I was giddy and running high on endorphins after the scene.  I had to return to my hotel room for something and on my way back I ran smack into the door.   I returned to his hotel room with tears streaming down my face.  He stared at me in disbelief and said something like "I just spanked the living shit out of you, and you're asking for more.  What the f*** did you do?"  To be fair, my hand had swollen up as though I had a golf ball under the skin.  But I probably should have sat on the ice bag he prepared for me, because the bruise on my hand was gone when I got home but I was black and blue from my hips to my knees!

Instead, I think the key to pushing my limits is trust.  Do I trust the person I'm playing with?  Do I trust that the Top knows how to use the implement?  Do I trust that they will stop if something goes wrong?  If my Top has my trust...I can go anywhere.  I can give myself over to the pain and simply fly.