Submission

I was talking with a friend about limits in preparation for Wednesday’s PTNG Discussion Social on limits, negotiation and consent. She asked me, seriously, if I personally knew what my limits are. Honestly, it was a hard question for me. I don’t like the idea of being labeled as a “hard player”, despite the fact that I know I sometimes am one, but I know that a lot of my friends, especially my local friends, see me that way I’m certainly not one of those “no limits crazy people” that sometimes show up on fetlife, claiming they’d let their Dom do anything to them. I do have some sense of self preservation: it’s just less than a lot of other people’s. I had to admit that there are some limits that I’m not sure of. I don’t mean what types of play or activity I am or am not comfortable with. I find that to be straight forward and easy to categorize. I do so like this:
Ethical Limits:The following are things that I won’t do, even under duress, because I feel that they are ethically inappropriate. These limits are constant and universal.* Play involving parties that do not or are unable to consent. This includes play involving minors, animals, the dead, the unconscious et cetera. * Play where the validity of consent is questionable. This includes people who are not mentally stable enough to give proper consent or those who have a track record of consenting to activities and then retroactively “removing” their consent to play the victim. I believe that consent must remain cut, dry and clear for a scene to function.
Solid (Unbending) Limits: I don’t like to use the word “never.” There was a time when I had “themes of bodily possession or belonging to another individual” on this list, and now belonging to Malignus is one of the greatest joys in my life. I’m always open to the idea that I could change dramatically in the future. That said, I can’t see myself ever doing these things if my life keeps going the way it is right now: * Sexual themes or contact in play. * Degradation or humiliation.* Inserting anything into any of my orifices, including my mouth.* The sharing of bodily substances other than my tears and blood.* Contact with my sexual organs, including my breasts, of any sort during a scene.* Religious, spiritual or occult themes in play. * Permanent bodily damage or transformation. * Consensual non-consent.* Infantilism.* Age-play where a character is younger than teenaged.* High Protocol.

Hard LimitsThese are things that I have absolutely no desire to ever do, but that I would engage in if sufficiently driven by submission and in a physically and emotionally safe environment. Those in bold carry significant emotional weight:*Wet and Messy play, especially including food.*Suction or vacuum play.*Electrical play.*Breath or choking play.*Drowning or water-boarding scenes.*Fire play (including fire cupping).*Knife/ Sharp object play.*Whipping and flogging (or any kind of impact play on the back).*Needle play.*Sensory deprivation.*Medical play.*Things involving feet.*Tickling.*Confinement.

Soft Limits:These things aren’t my preference, but I’m willing to do them if they are useful in a particular situation or are for a video:*Full nudity during a scene.*Teenage ageplay.*Bondage or restraints.
These are the limits that I understand. The ones that are lost on me are the limits of physical tolerance within a scene which is emotionally comfortable. There has to be an end to what I can take, right? If there is, it’s eluded me thus far. I’ve never reached the moment where a spanking becomes physically unbearable before (although I did once reach the point where I had to throw up because I had eaten way too much ice cream cake before the scene and another time because the emotional side of things wasn’t right for me). I’ve touched on the rumored “terminal hurt” –– the place where the body simply stops processing pain and things feel awesome, once, and it was an amazing experience. But I often hear people talk about thinking that they “can’t take any more” and that is something that I don’t feel.  I choose what I can endure. I have never seen a photo of a scene or created a scenario in my mind that I did not have full confidence that I could endure unless it was permanently damaging, against my other limits or far too dangerous. I’m not being cocky: I know what my abilities are, if I desire to use them. I’ve been severely injured in the past (from reasons not related to the scene!) in ways that the majority of people I interact with will never experience. I endured. I’m able to endure a considerable amount. What influences me, what creates my not yet understood limits, isn’t my ability: it’s my desire.
I’ve come to the conclusion that what I can take is based entirely on what I want to take, which makes the idea of the end point very flexible and sort of unnecessary. There’s romanticism in the idea of “going all the way” and finding the end of what I am willing to endure, the place where I no longer have any desire to continue. If I enjoy pushing myself, it would follow that I would enjoy pushing myself all the way. The problem with this is that it isn’t practical. It’s a nice fantasy, but it would involve an amount of force that would certainly be injurious and the satisfaction of proving what I can take wouldn’t be worth the effort and possible physical consequences to me. 
As it is, I take pleasure in engaging in play which is severe and “pushing myself” from time to time. It isn’t my usual thing. I don’t consider myself a particularly hard player in my daily life. When I do receive spankings that are particularly severe, I have the confidence of knowing that no matter what happens, it is something that I can take. I don’t need to have physical evidence to know that. I really only play to that level of intensity with Malignus, and I trust him entirely. Perhaps more importantly, I trust myself to be responsible for my own well-being if it comes down to it, and to endure appropriately if it does not.
Whether you’re seen by others as a hard player or not, do you know where you draw the line? Are you comfortable when others mark their limits in vastly different places than you do? I’ve often been uncomfortable talking about the level of play that I’m alright with because I fear that others will judge me negatively for it. Thoughts on that? 

I wrote the story that I posted to my blog the other night shortly after the scene took place, but only recently decided to share it. So that night, as I was getting it into blog-post form, I decided that I needed to add a photo of Warren to make things complete. I got up from the bed where I was working and went to the closet where I keep my implements to retrive it for photographing. I looked around, but was surprised to see that Warren was not there. I shoved stuff around, looking under other implements and even under the clothes and shoes on the next shelf over, but I didn’t see it anywhere.

Had I lost Warren? I had taken it, along with a handful of other implements, in my suitcase when I went to shoot with Lily Starr. I hadn’t ended up needing them, since Lily had a bunch of awesome/unacceptable stuff, so I hadn’t been thinking much about the fact that I brought them when I was leaving. Had I left Warren in the hotel room?

For all the times that I had joked about wanting Warren to get lost forever, when the possibility that it had actually happened arose, I was not happy with the development at all. The first issue that came to mind was the fact that it seemed unlikely that anyone would believe that it really was an accident, given how vocal I’ve been about wanting it broken into eight million splinters or burned in the fires of Mordor. I was fairly confident that my Dominant would believe me, for he knows me as no one else ever has and I believe would recognize that doing something like that on purpose is extremely beyond my character. Still, I don’t think he’d have been happy about it, and I didn’t want anyone to go around thinking that I lost toys I dislike on purpose. I had a hairbrush with which I had a fairly antagonistic relationship stolen at a munch one time, and I got a lot of flack for the fact that it “disappeared” from a couple of my friends and it had made me feel really awful.

Eventually, I found Warren. It had fallen from the shelf and my cats had piled a bunch of my clothes on top of it (perhaps trying to protect me?) when they were screwing around in the closet. It was the only time in my life when I looked at that implement and felt happy and relieved to see it :P.

Hugging a spoon is hard and awkward.

The whole experience reinforced an idea that my scene with J. had reminded me of: that in the end, no matter how much part of me hates something, no matter how many awful things I can say about it, the part of me that wants to be pushed and wants to submit will always win. It doesn’t make it untrue that I despise Warren and think it’s a truly evil, wicked creation. It’s just also true, and perhaps more worth my focus, that when I thought for a few minutes that I’d never again experience the agony that it creates, I felt a genuine sense of disappointment and sadness. As much as I hate it, my appreciation for its effect is stronger and more important to me.

Are there any spanko bottoms out there who have actually intentionally lost or destroyed a feared or disliked implement? Have you even just hid something? What was your particular motivation? What happened in the end? How did it make you feel? The fact that I could never bring myself to do such a thing and wouldn’t want people to think that I did doesn’t mean that I am judging anyone who has. We’ve all got different feelings and motivations for WIIWD and I’m curious to hear other perspectives. Tops, have you ever had a bottom hide/lose/destroy your stuff? How did you react? If you haven’t, how would you if it did happen? Do you feel that falls under acceptable bratting play, or does it cross a line to you?

In other news, I’m leaving to head up to Folsom Street Fair today with some awesome Los Angeles scene friends. I expect it to be full of epic win, and I shall tell you about my adventures upon my return, so look for that post!

Finally, I’ve updated my blog layout a bit over the past couple of days. Apparently some people didn’t understand that the background was meant to be Alice in Wonderland themed, (you know, to play off the name of the blog?) so I added that adorable little White Rabbit graphic and changed the background color to echo the blue color traditionally associated with Alice’s dress. I think everything looks brighter and more cheery now, too, so I hope you like it.

Note: This post is really long. I hope you enjoy it anyway. I tend to be a bit verbose, especially when writing recollections. Also, I’m posting this right at the end of Erica Scott’s birthday. Erica is one of my all time favorite people in the scene, and I’ve long admired her writing style, her wit, her perfect butt and, most importantly, her confidence and sense of self. I think the world would be a much better place if it had more women, or people in general, like her in it. She’s the kind of woman that I aspire to be, and I hope she had an awesome birthday and many happy returns <3. 

Ok, on to the story! 

The day after my shoot with Assume the Position, I felt very sore. My butt was visually healing extremely quickly, but it still had a lot of deep ache from all of the larger wooden implements I was spanked with, and I was a bit swollen and very tender. I was lying on my stomach in bed reading in the early evening when I heard someone coming into the apartment to see my boyfriend, R. Within a few seconds I was pleasantly surprised to recognize who was there: it was my favorite local play partner, J. 
J. works with R. and is one of my spanko friends that I met through vanilla channels. While drinking one night, he confided in me that he liked to spank girls and I was more than willing to tell him that I was fond of receiving! Since then, we’ve been getting together for scenes whenever we’re able to. He was out of town for a few months, and since he got back, I’ve had two chances to see him. Both times he spanked me, and both were mild, pleasant hand spankings. 
I’ve always called J. my “nice spanker”: we’ve always had a very fun, light hearted energy and he’s more likely to make me laugh and giggle than cry from a spanking. He’s good at what he does, but we rarely play so hard as to leave me feeling sore the next morning. I truly appreciate this variety: sometimes, I just want to have fun. Plus, he’s charming and sweet and he makes me feel mushy inside. My heart went aflutter just hearing his voice in the hallway.
I sort of scampered out into the living room to greet him. After he finished talking to my boyfriend about some work related materials he was dropping off, he pulled me into a hug and lifted me off my feet. 
“Let’s go into your bedroom, Alex,” he said. “I wanna see what your bottom looks like after your big shoot.” I agreed. There was no reason I couldn’t show him my bottom in the hallway, but I would gladly head alone into a room with him any time. We walked in and he sat down on the edge of my bed very purposefully. I felt my stomach do the little flip-flop that it always does when I realize or confirm that I’m about to be spanked. Sometimes it’s excitement, sometimes it’s nervousness or fear, but most of the time, it’s a mixture of the two. Generally, I feel nothing but happiness when I have the chance to be over J.’s lap: he’s never disciplined me or given me particularly challenging spankings. Today, though, something felt a little different. My bottom was very sore, and he seemed far more determined than usual. In many situations, that would be called a “bad combination”. 
Still standing a bit of a distance from him, I turned around and lifted my skirt, then pulled down my panties. I had told him what implements I was spanked with via email, when I shared my photos with him. He poked the most bruised area of my bottom very firmly, making me give off a sharp “OW!” 

See that bruise? That’s what he was poking!


“Is that from the wrap on the belt?” he asked. I nodded. “What did you think of it?” 
The scene I shot was the first time I’ve played with leather implements in a long time. I’d had a few spankings from Serious_Face with a strap, but that was back in England, over a year ago. The day before was also my first belt spanking. “I liked it a lot!” I told him. “It was sort of… just right. It was an enjoyable mix of sting and a very light thud.”
“Good,” he said. “I’ll have to give you a belting someday. Not today, though.” 
Oh! I thought. Maybe he’s *not* going to spank me today. 
“How does your bottom feel right now, girl?” he asked. He calls me “girl” fairly often. I wouldn’t like it from most people, but the way he says it with his Texas accent just makes me all swoony. 
“It’s very sore,” I said, honestly. J. smiled.
“I’ve never had a chance to spank you when you already had a sore bottom, you know.” Usually, in this situation, I’d jump at the chance to ask for a spanking. I had stopped pretending that I didn’t want to be spanked a long time ago. Yet this time, for some reason, even though I very much wanted to be over his lap, I felt the need to stall and to play the game of trying to get out of it a little bit. Maybe it was because I knew I could get away with it. Maybe it was because I’d been thinking about how to be bratty in roleplaying in case it ever came up for a video. Whatever it was, instead of jumping into my favorite position, I pulled my panties back up and turned around slowly.
“The last time you spanked me I was still a little bit sore from visiting Malignus,” I said hesitantly. 
He shook his head. “Oh come on, Alex. You weren’t really sore anymore, then.” He smiled, and then said in a fun, playful way (not in a domly, “do what I say” kind of voice): “Come here: I’m gonna give you a spanking.” I shivered a little.
“But my bottom really hurts!” I complained, putting my hands back protectively. It sounded strange and alien to hear that sort of protest in my own voice. I felt very slightly embarrassed by it, but J. was smiling and I knew that he enjoyed this sort of play. 
“I know it does. That’s the point.” He beckoned me with one finger. “Come here.” 
I backed away a little more and shook my head “no.” 
“No?” he asked, sounding surprised. “Alex says ‘no’ to a spanking? That’s gotta be one for the books right there.” I made a scrunchy face. “Alright,” he said, standing up, clearly playing the game. “If you don’t want a spanking, then I’ll go say goodbye to your boyfriend and head home.” He started to walk toward the door.
“Wait!” I cried, worried that he might actually leave. He looked at me expectantly. I suddenly realized that he’d backed me into a corner: I now had to ask for my spanking directly. Usually, asking wasn’t much of a deal anymore. Asking to be disciplined was still incredibly hard (I’ve still only managed to do it a few times) and asking for something like a thigh spanking was never going to become particularly easy, but in general, just admitting I wanted to be spanked had gotten to be fairly routine: during my second visit to Malignus’ place, I asked to be spanked at least once every day. Still, there was something that seemed particularly bitter about asking for something that one had just denied wanting. I swallowed my pride as quickly as I could. “Would you please spank me, J.?” I asked in as confident of a voice as I could muster. 
“Oh, you changed your mind?” he teased. I nodded. “Did your bottom stop hurting all the sudden?” I made another scrunchy face. 
“I do want you to spank me,” I reiterated. 
“You’re sure?” he asked, laughing at me a little. I gave a vigorous “yes!” “Alright,” he said, sitting back down on the bed. “Go get me the spoon you brought back from South Dakota.” 
I made this face: 0_0. “WARREN?” I asked with genuine concern in my voice. “Oh, J., you don’t want to spank me with Warren!” For those who are not familiar, Warren is a good sized, weight bearing, sturdy, wooden spatula with a fairly large spanking surface that Malignus insisted I take home with me. It became my sole property after I bled on it, but I tried very hard to get it to remain at Malignus’ house instead of coming home with me. In the end, I lost that battle (as one would expect) and it was sitting in my closet with my other spanking toys. Warren is not a nice implement. It has mostly been used for discipline or for particularly challenging, submission driven spankings: the exact opposite of the kind of spanking I expected to receive from J. 

Warren, like his sister, Jenny, is horrible in every way and will never be loved by anyone. 


“Didn’t I just say I did?” he asked. He was still smiling and bantering. I decided to try one more time:
“But, you don’t understand! Warren is…”
J. cut me off. “One of the three worst things ever. Part of the Holy Trinity of Hurt. I remember, Alex. Go get it for me.” 
“What about a hairbrush? I have hairbrushes you never…” 
“Spoon!” he ordered, his voice suddenly filled with an authority that I’d never heard from him. In many situations, hearing someone say that word as a command would be simply ridiculous. In this one, my whole body felt like it was turned to jelly. The game was over: I’d lost. I was going to get a real spanking now.
J. is not my Dominant. We don’t have any sort of D/s dynamic. Still, the feeling of his sudden authority wasn’t threatening or uncomfortable. I didn’t feel pressured into something I didn’t want. I felt safe and submissive. I felt a tiny touch of the most wonderful feeling in the world: belonging. 
I went to the closet and got down Warren. I handed it to J., and he looked it over for a moment, then slapped it against his hand a few times to feel the weight and speed of it. 
“This does seem mean,” he said, friendliness returning to his voice, but with a serious undertone that did not remove my anticipation. He set it behind him on the bed. “Pull your panties down and get over my lap, now,” he ordered. I did as I was told without hesitation. “Good girl,” he said, praising me for my speed in obeying. Sometimes, it makes me feel awkward when someone other than Malignus or Serious_Face calls me that. Here, nothing could have felt more right. I got cozy in my position while he gently rubbed my bottom. Just his soft touch hurt a little bit. I tried to relax and accept instead of letting myself panic at the realization of just how sore I already was, but nervousness was mounting and I could already feel the prelude to tears building in my throat.
J. started spanking me with his hand. It was a nice warmup; firm, but not too painful. After a minute or so of spanking, he spoke to me: “So, you’re trying to get out of spankings now, huh?” he asked. “Where’d you pick that up?” 
“I dunno” I muttered, half into the blanket that I’d bunched up near my face. J. responded with a very firm smack to the back of my thigh. “HEY!” I cried. “Treaty line!” I was referring to The International Thigh Protection Treaty, a now extremely outdated document that just about everyone seems to disregard.
“Was that too forceful?” he asked. He sounded genuinely concerned that he might be pushing my limits. I thought about it for a moment. I could ask him not to spank my thighs at all. I had that right, and the part of me that would prefer him not to was no small section. Still, I was really enjoying the way this scene was playing out. 
“It’s okay. You can spank my thighs some if you want to.” He signaled his understanding by delivering a few fairly hard smacks there. 
“Where did your brattiness earlier come from, Alex?” he asked again, after a few more moments of firm, fairly slow paced smacks. 
“I guess I was just experimenting a little bit,” I told him. 
“It’s okay to play around sometimes, but you better not make a habit of that.” 
“I won’t!” I promised. “I’d only do it if I thought it was okay!” He kept spanking me for another minute. Suddenly, I felt genuine concern. Was I really being scolded? Had I actually been a bad girl? I turned that idea over in my head for at least another minute, all the while receiving firm but manageable smacks to my already sore bottom. 
“Hey J.?” I asked when I felt like I had a clear grasp on what my worries were. “Are you really mad?” 
“No,” he said. “I don’t want you to go around making backwards progress because it seems fun at the time, but I trust you to know what you’re doing. I’m not angry at you. I’m not trying to discipline you. It’s just a spanking.” There was a pause in the spanking. “Do you want me to stop?” he asked. 
I shook my head “no.” “Please don’t,” I told him.
“Do you not want me to spank you with the spoon? I’m not gonna do anything you don’t want.” 
“Are you okay with me crying today?” I asked. 
“I am. What I’m asking is what you want, though.” I thought for a moment. 
“Okay,” I said, attempting to accept my fate.
“Not good enough,” he scolded. “I’m only going to do it if you want me to. Not just if you’re gonna accept it. If you want it.” 
It was a hard place to be. Part of me did not want to be spanked with Warren for any reason, and certainly did not want to get an “unnecessary” spanking with it.  My instincts for immediate self preservation wanted nothing more than to say that I did not want him to use Warren on me. I knew, however, that was not the most honest part of me. I was frightened by the idea of how much the spanking would hurt, but waiting beyond that were wonderful feelings. Contentment. Stress release. Safety. Pride. I truly wanted to be brought to the place that I knew a spanking with this implement would bring me, and I knew I’d be horribly disappointed in myself if I backed away from it. 
“Please, J.,” I said with as much confidence as I could muster. “I want you to spank me with Warren.” I felt more relaxed as soon as the words were out of my mouth. J. stroked my face for a moment and I basked in the comfort of his touch.
“Okay,” he said firmly. “I’m gonna start now.” I put my face in the pile of blankets at the end of the bed, trying to relax my body into calm acceptance. It occurred to me for a second that maybe Warren was not always all that painful, that maybe it was just particularly well suited to Malignus’ fast, hard, ridiculously stingy spanking style. Maybe it wouldn’t be so…
My train of thought was interrupted by the first spank. Nope! I was wrong! Warren just hurt a lot. Each smack bordered on being intolerable. It couldn’t have been more than a dozen before I was whimpering and crying out. It hurt! Oh holy hell, it hurt. He went relatively slowly and nowhere near as hard as I was used to being spanked with the implement in the past, but each smack still made me feel a white-hot world of pain. Before I knew it, I was freely crying. I started to sob and sniffle. J. put his left hand on my back and rubbed it in a gentle, affectionate circle. “Good girl,” he said. “Whatever you’ve got, just cry it out.” Even though I’d just had a spanking that ended in tears the day before, I found myself deeply appreciative of the chance to cry. I felt safe and warm and emotionally comfortable. My sobs got more and more desperate as the spanking went on. I knew I probably seemed pretty pathetic, but I didn’t care. I stopped fighting it as well as I could and I accepted and appreciated the spanking that I was clearly getting because I was cared about. Still, when J. asked: “Are you ready for me to stop?” my answer was “yes!”
He gave me five more hard swats, then set the spoon down and focused on rubbing my back. “Shhhhhh,” he comforted me. “You’re such a good girl.” After a few minutes, my crying stopped and I climbed up onto his lap and snuggled for a little while, feeling peaceful and content. 

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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