Response

The following is a piece entitled “Genetic vs. ‘Interest'” which was written by my friend, Thursday Knight, and posted on fetlife. It raised several points that are important to me and that I wanted to add my thoughts on.

The day I opened up my fetlife account was on my 18th birthday. Throughout the internet, various websites had a new user of “Thursday Knight”–all of them spanking related.


I am a spanko; ever since the age of three years old I’ve had the desire to be spanked. While holding true to most spankos who can relate, I had all the signs. Anything spanking related in books or TV was a rare obsessive delight (the clock in Disney’s Pinocchio, Benjamin Bunny, and countless other things), looking up the word “spanking” in the dictionary, getting the topic brought up among friends to find out if they had any personal stories, etc. etc. etc.


The thing is, I did not choose this condition. I did not choose to be sexually dysfunctional (and despite spanking being a very ‘mild’ sexual deviancy, it still is not ‘normal’). Yet…what astounds me is that people do choose it.


Now, for the sake of whoever may be reading this, this is not an attack. Or even judgement. I am simply pointing out that there are many people on this website who choose to get into “the lifestyle”.


From experience, I started typing in spanking searches into the internet when I was thirteen. Other people with sexual fetishes (note that a “fetish” is described as: a form of sexual desire in which gratification is linked to an abnormal degree to a particular object, item of clothing, part of the body, etc. [NOT] “it just turns me on”) I would assume would do likewise. They would want to connect, find out more people who think like they do.


But besides the casual “bedroom partners”, how do average people who want to “spice” up things, suddenly become “rope professionals” and “vampiric dominate daddys”? When they were growing up did they have a small interest and it grew? Or did they “decide” that this would be okay? What would possess someone to come up with the idea that people can come together and have parties where they’ll tie each other up and eat snacks?


I’m not saying there is anything wrong with it, I am purely wondering where someone would come up with the notion.


Is it human nature to deviate from the norm? Are human minds just naturally perverse and therefore susceptible to the malleability of something new? They hear about something from a friend or on TV and realize that sounds fun?


Or is something genetic at play? Are those “vanillas” who will never even think a website like this, and perfectly happy too, every know (what we feel) they are missing?


Pretend your partner and you had a ‘normal’ relationship with very little concept of what you do now with each other, would that relationship still work? Would you think he is a lazy ass? That she is a needy attention-hog?


If these feelings are genetic (or at least a genetic disposition, in that our brains are pre-disposed to this sort of thinking) would they serve the purpose of balancing out our mental stability?


What makes people with an “interest” want to “choose” to be different in this way?


One last thought: Could you truly live without your kinky-doings and be happy? If someone said “You can be painlessly euthanized or live without ever doing your fetish/kinky thing ever again.” Could you?


I, I could not.


Thursday’s post resonated with me for a couple of reasons. First, she brought up an issue which I’ve often wondered about: why would anyone choose this? I’m also not attacking and I’m not pointing fingers. I don’t think that there is anything wrong with choosing to join the lifestyle. I just don’t see why one would. In fact, when I first started attending munches and other kink events in Los Angeles, it didn’t occur to me that there would be people there who weren’t “born with it” the way that Thursday and I (and I’m sure many of you) were. In fact, I operated under the assumption that the people I met who were into bondage were as excited when they saw a damsel in distress tied to the train tracks in a cartoon as Thursday and I were when we saw that Benjamin Bunny getting thrashed with a switch for his naughtiness in the picture book. Now, there *are* people who are bondage fetishists. I know one person who was involved in doing self bondage from a very young age indeed and several who always thought about being immobilized or secured in various ways. But many of the people who I’ve met who are into bondage, or D/s, or general impact play simply were told about it, gave it a shot and found it interesting. It sort of baffles me. There are people who choose this. They became curious about deviant behavior and decided that it was somehow worthwhile for them to engage in. Were they equally predestined to enjoy their lifestyle activities and simply unaware that they existed? Is one actually able to control their identity so much as to select something like this and make it his or her own? And to what end? I’m open about the fact that my involvement in the spanking and BDSM communities enriches my life, but I can’t imagine that the lifestyle is inherently enriching. The growth, joy, development, relief et cetera that I gain from my activities seems to me to be based on fulfilling something which has always existed. It doesn’t naturally follow that a person who developed without those early desires would have the same, or even a slightly similar, response to being exposed to the stimuli that I find valuable.

Part of the reason why I’m slightly taken aback by this is because I’ve always seen my spankophilia (if it can be called that because it isn’t sexual) as, at worst, a deformity and, at best, some sort of social hindrance. I’m not ashamed of it anymore, but it has always been something which made my life more complicated. Like Thursday, I can’t imagine myself being happy if I couldn’t have spanking in my life. Given the choice, I’d sooner give up almost anything else. I’d go so far as to be prefer losing a couple of limbs over losing spanking. I don’t want to say that I NEED to be spanked, but it’s hard not to. At the very least, I need to have it in my life on some level. I don’t ever NEED a spanking in a particular moment, but I truly don’t know if I could have a satisfactory existence without it. Other kinksters who aren’t spankos but like spanking want to be spanked or to spank others. In many ways, we require it. Requiring something brings along a boatload of things to work through and accept, fears, insecurities, difficulties et cetera. It also places a high value on something that can be very hard to find– that is to say, a good spanking partner.

It’s a lot of interesting stuff to think about, and it’s territory that I don’t often cover for fear of being offensive and making too many waves. So: what do you think?

It’s not a secret: I cry from spankings a lot. There are videos of me crying available from Spanking Court, Assume the Positions Studios, and Lily Starr Spanking. I talk about it here all the time, too, and I’ve posted about it on various fetlife threads from time to time. So it isn’t surprising that one of my friends sent me a message asking me for more insight into my ability to cry. This is the second time that I’ve been inspired to respond to a question in the form of a blog post, because my thoughts organized themselves so well that I figured that others might enjoy reading my insights as well.

There are several different ways in which a spanking can make me cry. I can break my crying during a spanking down into several categories:

*Crying fueled by regret for bad behavior.

This is one of the more common forms of crying from a spanking in general, and the psychology of it is very straight forward. This takes place during disciplinary spankings. In my opinion, if a spankee is in this mindset and that is not the intended atmosphere of the spanking, then something is wrong. Either the top has not communicated the intended purpose of the spanking effectively or the bottom is dwelling on previous or otherwise unaddressed bad behavior. This is the easiest way for me to cry during a spanking, although it is rarely ever particularly difficult.

The atmosphere of a disciplinary spanking keeps my mind focused on my wrong-doing and just how unenjoyable it is to be punished. This atmosphere makes me extremely vulnerable and therefore makes my experience of the spanking much more physically painful. For me, a spanking serves this purpose most effectively if it is delivered either very sternly or, in certain situations, harshly. What’s the difference? To me, a “stern” delivery is very calm and controlled, with some level of formality, but unbendingly serious. A “harsh” delivery involves some expression of annoyance (as opposed to just displeasure) and is a bit “gruffer”: there might be some raising of the voice or rougher shoving back into position. It’s the difference between “Bare your bottom and get in position” and “get your pants down and get over my lap RIGHT NOW!” The latter is generally more effective if the offense which has earned me the punishment is related to my attitude, just because it’s more jarring and it makes it much harder for me to keep feeling sorry for myself. 😛

Either way, the creation of this atmosphere makes me vulnerable and receptive, and it makes me most contrite and regretful, and therefore brings me to tears very quickly.

*Crying fueled by stress relief/emotional release.


This is the kind of crying that happens when I get that feeling that I just need a good spanking. This happens when I feel like I’ve been keeping things inside myself, or I’ve been struggling hard with something, or life has been wearing me down. These spankings have always been most effective for me i they begin with sternness until I reach the point where I’ve begun to cry and then the tone becomes more affectionate. Again, this is about being vulnerable: in this case, the spanking is effective because I allow myself not to fight against it (or, if I cannot do such a thing on my own, to break me down) and instead use it to push everything out. I originally imagined that a stress relief style spanking would be calm and soothing, but I discovered with experience that it works best for me when it’s merciless, hard and long. A good example of this sort of spanking can be found in the story told in the last couple of paragraphs of this post.

*Crying fueled by relief.

This is a different kind of relief than stress relief. It’s relief that a long anticipated spanking is finally happening. This sort of tears is generated by a spanking that is usually very connecting, reaffirmative and filled with caring. Alternatively, these tears can be part of the reason I cry during a long awaited punishment. The point is, I’m moved to tears by the feeling that I’m back where I belong and that I’ve obtained something that I’ve long desired, or that some sort of waiting period has ended. My first spanking was the ultimate example of this: I was overcome with the most extreme relief I’d ever felt, since the burden of waiting for my first spanking was finally lifted from me. These tears are very happy, and filled with satisfaction.

Photo by Assume the Position Studios

*Crying fueled by submission or surrender.

Some bottoms talk about subspace- going off into some floaty, magical, trance-like, trippy state from getting a very hard beating which pushes them towards submission. They sink into the bed, they stop feeling pain, they float on endorphines, they get high, they can’t talk properly…

This doesn’t happen for me (although it did once). I’m a very cerebral person, and I’m uncomfortable letting go of my awareness. Instead, when I’ve been pushed to a place where I cease my fighting, I get to a point of submissive crying. It’s a calm sort of sobbing where there’s no urgency in the sound. I’ve given myself over to the spanking that I’m receiving and I have no will regarding when it will end. It’s certainly not as exciting to talk about, or as filled with mystery and intrigue as traditionally described subspace is, but the land of my submission is just a place where I lie still and take a lot of hurt and cry about it. It probably sounds pretty pathetic to a listener, and it doesn’t feel “good” in a traditional sense, but it’s a very peaceful place where I feel incredibly safe and loved.

*Crying fueled by physical pain.


What’s that?! It’s kind of taboo in the spanking community to admit that crying happens because a spanking hurts, but for me, yeah, that happens. I know that the fact that it’s a safe environment where I’m engaging consensually in something that I love and that I’m allowing to make me vulnerable plays a part in it, but even with amazing atmosphere and the best, most loving connection between me and my Top (so, when Malignus is spanking me), I’m going to get to crying much more quickly from a hard paddling than from a hand spanking. It’s not like I cry because things hurt in my non-spanking life (except for the occasional migraine) so it’s clearly not all about the physical pain, but I won’t deny that a harder, faster paced, longer spanking (that is to say, one which hurts more) will be far, far more likely to bring me to tears.

Oh, Hai!

Alex

Los Angeles, California, United States

First and foremost, I’m a girl who loves being spanked. It’s at the very center of my being. I’m also a professional spanking model, which means I get to do what I love for my job. I’m twenty six years old, and currently located in Los Angeles when I’m not traveling around on my adventures. My vanilla interests include poetry, film history, academia, Pokemon, indie music, baby animals, baking and cooking, collecting vintage clothes and lots of cuddling.

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