Spanking: A Reinvestment

This blog began primarily as forum to discuss the practice of adult consensual spanking and polyamory in a committed family (our family), within the context of a BDSM relationship.  Much of our attention here the last two years has been consumed by conversation about a maelstrom our family passed through as we transitioned through the abrupt end of my work career, and my drinking career, and the far reaching crises that ensued, exacerbated by a number of serious health issues and family deaths.  My passage into middle age and retirement has been far from boring or pleasurable.  On the other hand it has been referred to by my therapist recently as a period in my life/our lives in which I was transformed from coal to diamond under massive pressure.

I am declaring an end to our endless family crisis.  I want to get back to the discussion of our experiences with the primary topics of this blog, our relationships within the D/s context, our polyamory, and how the practice of adult consensual spanking emanates from our identities and our erotic love.

In the past I have declared that much of the fun joy and excitement of my life was tied up in the enjoyment of smoking, drinking, eating, and spanking.  When I celebrated a holiday, or a vacation, or a weekend, or whatever....these practices were my celebration. My enjoyment of smoking and drinking are ended, and I am so much healthier physically, emotionally, and spiritually without pursuing these addictions.    My eating is now a process of consuming those nutrients that I need to survive healthily.  While eating now is not always entirely an exercise in asceticism, it is far from the enjoyment that it once was.  In all these cases those changes which may seem like sacrifices (because they are) are more than offset by the improvements in my health and the potential for me to live a much longer and happier life as I age than I was headed toward a few years ago.  I do not need pity for having lost these previous passions......they were all killing me.

I have often described adult consensual spanking as my primary expression of erotic relatedness, excitement, fun, and joy.  That remains.  As the lone survivor of my previous menu of enjoyments, it is now not only important because of my drive to experience it, but because it seems to be my singular remaining expression of hedonism other than, of course, vanilla sex.

I want to revisit the discussion of adult consensual spanking and eventually to explore its role in my life.

It is interesting that during our preoccupation with our family’s crises of the last two years, our culture’s steady progress toward coming to greater awareness and acceptance of adult consensual erotic/ and or disciplinary spanking and D/s has expanded dramatically with the huge readership of the book Fifty Shades of Grey as well as depictions in a number of films.  At a minimum, those who were previously intimidated to admit, even to themselves, that spanking had a place in their sensual/erotic orientation or fantasy life, may now feel permission to explore that.  If anything, in our current cultural environment, adult consensual spanking is a fad and not the taboo it was once viewed to be.  Sadomasochism and its primary expression, spanking, have evolved from being a psychiatric diagnosis to a legitimate alternative erotic expression.  We  who share an orientation to spanking have gone from being viewed as perhaps having psychosis, or certainly neurosis, to today being seen as engaging in slightly deviant naughtiness....even  perhaps as being in the mainstream exploring a fad of progressive erotic expression.

This was certainly not the case a few decades ago.   I grew to my adulthood in the dark ages of having erotic feelings about spanking.  I described this in this post back in 2005 as my path to my present relationship, and my acceptance of my need regarding spanking.  I have changed so many aspects of my self concept over the last two years.  So profound an evolution has affected everything including my relationship to this seminal aspect of my personality.  I am more interested in the experience of spanking both as a spanker and a spankee.  It is more important to me to experience spanking from both ends of its inherent power exchange with my spanking partner.  I am less intensely sadomasochistic than I was.  I am still sadistic of course.  Spanking is sadistic.  Being spanked is masochistic.  I used to have far less concern for the level of intensity a bottom partner I spanked was experiencing.  The greater her intensity the more I liked it.  My spanking partners knew how intensely I played when I spanked and consented to that level of play or they did not participate.  Certainly the most intensely masochistic partner I ever had was my sue.  Now I am more solicitous of the experience of my partner, although considering the baseline of spanking sadism that was mine previously, I am maybe now “improved” to the level of most high end intensity spankers.  I also used to switch.  I switched to explore the experience of bottom partners so that I imagined what they experienced in reality. My sadistic enjoyment was, in its essence, my imagination of their experience when I spanked them.  I seemed to have a pretty high tolerance for the intensity of my being spanked then.  I don’t know how much it may have been that my sensual reactions were muted in those days, perhaps by my alcoholism, or some of the medications I was on for arthritis, or whatever, but today my pain tolerance is far less, and my wimpiness, when I am spanked, seems to be far greater.

My feelings about power exchange in general, Dominance and submission, are also changed, and I am not sure what I can say about that at this point.  I am sure that as we go on and relate those dynamics will  become clearer for us to write about here.

I find though that I want to return to spanking in my life, and in my writing.  I am still one of the more experienced spanking practitioners one will encounter.  One of the aspects of my age is that I have long experience.  I have one of the larger collections of spanking implements, restraints, furniture, etc. that one will likely encounter (some of which are shown in the pictures above). I am trained, experienced, and skilled in their use to create a variety of sensations, and intensities, in the safe but quite effective administration of spankings..........not just in the technical aspects of the physical act itself, but in the psycho-social dynamics of spanking as well. Fortunately, I have with me a family which is similarly equipped, experienced, competent, and inclined.

This is the beginning of my reinvesting in this aspect of my life.  It is my returning to a more normal existence that is not so absorbed in continually needing to discuss my feelings, my identity, my “issues.”

This post is my transition.  In subsequent posts I am planning to write about spanking......in particular adult consensual spanking......and its art, science, philosophy, history, psychology, physiology, theory, practice, politics, emotion, eroticism, etc.  I will base this on my experience and research.  I will encourage my family to chime in with their insights, information, and experiences as they are moved to join in.

I hope this may enhance our experience of our new reality.  I hope in that there are more people who are interested in exploring spanking today, this discussion from someone who has lived with this for a few decades might be of interest or help.

Thank you again for the friendship of so many loyal friends who have supported us here, as we have passed through this last two plus years of travail and growth.

All the best,

Tom

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.  Live the life you’ve imagined.

Day 730

This is the 730th day of my sobriety.  It seems almost mythical.  In  alcohol rehab. the two year sobriety point was a sort of mid-range holy grail.  In addiction literature they write that at two years there is a neurological healing in alcoholics.  We (especially I) have paid a great deal of attention to this approaching milestone.  It is now here.

I have done a lot of considering and searching over recent weeks about what it is I can say for myself at this point in terms of who I am, and in particular, my sense of spirituality.

Yes, you are about to be subjected to another lengthy rambling manifesto of serious, not very  BDSM or adult consensual spanking oriented, self-absorbed, discourse about my personal growth, development, feelings, and thoughts about life in general.

I have come to realize that throughout my life my sense of who I am has been defined by others perceptions of my social role.  Ask someone who they are and you’re likely to hear something akin to doctor, lawyer, Indian chief, bricklayer, student, teacher, parent, child, man, woman, young, old, etc.  We are, each of us, in our minds, what we do. The way others react to what that is mirrors to us a reflection that we, all too often, interpret as “who we are.”  I have done that all my life.  I have been a social role player...objectified by my role.  One is objectified to the extent that one becomes what they perceive others’  reactions to them are.

As children we all become, to ourselves, what we feel is mirrored of us by the feedback we receive from our parents, our siblings, our peers, teachers, etc.  I was sickly, fat, prone to be bad, stubborn, slow-both physically and mentally, angry, hostile, and able to be made good if I suffered enough pain.  I accepted those realities as my own. My secret was that actually I was quite bright and could develop control to mount a counter campaign of guerilla warfare against adults and all authority, and I did, and felt occasionally great vindication when I could cause retaliatory pain to adults and gain some measure of control.

Gaining power through pain has been a theme in my life. (This is one part of this that may sort of apply to those who are oriented to or exploring SM.)  Pain was a constant companion of my life.  My parents were huge believers in its transformational and redemptive powers and wanted me to never be deprived.  My teachers, who were some of the first practitioners of special education, prior to anyone’s ever writing about dyslexia or ADHD or having any knowledge of those learning styles, knew that my failure to respond to school as most children did, meant I was willful, stubborn, bad, and stupid, and they too felt I needed transformation and redemption. So they frequently augmented and cooperated with my parents’ efforts to facilitate my development.

I learned early that pain is a social institution.  It is a response learned through conditioning.  Its experience is often relative.  I learned for example that if one shut one’s eyes, or didn’t look at a teacher when they punished you, you could avoid most of the unpleasantness and just not care....and WIN.  That never worked with my parents but their relationship was more seminal.  I knew the worst pain was not physical but was emotional.  I learned that when my mother had me go out to play wearing a sign that proclaimed to all my friends, “I am stupid,” I felt very deeply that in fact it was the truth.  I wondered why I was alive and wished desperately I could stop being...stop hurting.

In time one learns to make friends with pain, to recognize its power to remove barriers and, when shared, to create exceptional intimacy.  One eroticizes pain and what with frequent childhood experiences one eroticizes spanking.  It becomes a sensual/erotic orientation that is intertwined with the woof and warp of one’s sexuality.  In its acceptance as a part of identity, it becomes a disempowerment of its initially attendant harm.

I grew and finally became emancipated from my parental home.  My life became pursuit of pleasure.  Pleasure meant something that was not pain.  It was smoking, drinking, drugging, rebelling, thinking and learning (but refusing to demonstrate learning in ways that would result in good grades lest I satisfy authority figures in some way.)

I found a young woman.  She was the first woman with whom I had not been terrified.  I assumed this absence of fear must mean soul-bondedness and love.  This was a horrid mistake.  Fortunately she was a good mother to our children.

Eventually the seductiveness of the intellectual offerings of my university succeeded  in getting even to me.  I became a straight A student.  (My undergraduate transcript is a sight....three years of grade point averages which always ended with my being in a student status labeled “dropped,” followed by two years of successive 4.0 grade averages)  I’d finally matured enough to learn that my withholding gratification in academic pursuits punished me and no one else........DUH:)

I was the consummate long haired hippie druggie in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, dedicated to fighting cops in street actions against the war and society -- Ronald Reagan’s worst nightmare kid.  As I walked down the street the feedback I received from others, whether adulation from peers or horror from “straight people,” was hugely gratifying to me.  I felt a sense of self-worth for the first time.  I subsisted economically, but independently, enough to go to school, get drugs and books, and to rebel.  I was married.  LIfe seemed good.  I felt better than I ever had.

I learned there were careers I could get into that were involved with changing the social order and which could give me economic growth which would afford a more comfortable lifestyle.  My then wife finished school and became a teacher.  I went to work in social services.  I always focused on work in the administrative control/political portion of the agencies where I worked.  Eventually I found my way to work in advocacy agencies...agencies whose purpose was the fomenting of social/political change.  I felt powerful.  I no longer used illegal drugs.  There was too much to lose by running afoul of the law.  I loved and reveled in the communion of drinking.  I was proud of my ability to drink much “better” than just about anyone.

My  two children were born.  I adored them.  Their being ”gave” me a new identity that validated my existence.  I did all I could to be super-dad.  I was progressive, and gender role liberated. and hard working, and loving, and strict, and providing, caring, teaching, and on and on.  My wife didn’t need me.  I had performed my function.  She had her children.  I no longer served a purpose in her life and was completely expendable.  I did not fit her identity.

Our marriage ended as did my parenthood for all intents and purposes.  My status as parent that had been so important to me was smashed.  I was devastated by this loss.  I drank and worked and flailed about in search of relationships within the then emerging BDSM community. I was seeking a new identity.

My career blossomed.  I became an advocacy leader who was powerful, sought after, and successful.  In my private life I found my  t and my swan and over time we became a family.

If I drank enough I could forget my childhood perspective of myself; I could numb the pain of the loss of my children.  I lived in my profession and was a very much loved Master in a poly triad M/s intentional family.  I was, I thought much more than good.  I was unique.  I was a rebel who controlled the least rebellious of social constructs...social institutions, and turned them back on the society that had formed them to foment change and progress.  Simultaneously, in my private life, I lived the antithesis of our social order.....polyamory and BDSM.  I had huge power in both professional and private domains, and I was strong....hell brilliant....and BOY, WAS I DRUNK!

Things went well for years but the gyroscope of my life began to wobble just a micrometer or two.  My parents became aged and ill, and I was their primary life support.  Eventually, my Mom was in an alzheimers center.  My terrible lifelong obesity problem was taking a huge and potentially fatal toll on me and we decided to make a radical attempt to save me.  I had gastric bypass surgery.  It went badly as a procedure but was ultimately transformational in terms of my life.  (On March 23 2009 I weighed 330 pounds and had a 54 inch waist.  This morning I weighed 154 pounds and I have a 32 inch waist.)  I had another subsequent life threatening emergency surgery 9 months later secondary to my gastric bypass, but eventually got past that as well.  In the last few years I’ve had a knee arthroscopy, two total knee replacements, a total reverse shoulder replacement, and an emergency bowel resection due to obstruction besides, my gastric bypass surgery.  Those health issues and the eventual loss of my parents caused the multiple spinning plates I had kept spinning in the air to come crashing to the ground.

As those plates crashed, so did my career.  No one ever questioned that I was a successful advocate and leader, but I lost sight of managing the business aspects of a very dynamic nonprofit in the midst of the economic upheaval.  In June 2010, I was unemployed for the first day in thirty-five years.  My parents had died.  I lost in very short order my identity as son and caretaker, professional, leader, and my body image, while improved, changed so radically as to become almost unrecognizable to me.  I was in pain and I dealt with it by numbing it with drinking.  At least I was still Dominant in my family.  As I drank more my behavior became more erratic.  It turns out that gastric bypass surgery makes handling alcohol very difficult if not impossible, and then only when consumed carefully in very small amounts.  I was neither drinking small amounts or carefully.  I became erratic and eventually violent.  My family called the police and I went to jail.  The Dominant role that was the last vestige of my “identity” crashed and burned.

I started this piece talking about how influenced I have been all my life by believing that feedback I  received from others mirrored to me my self-worth or lack thereof.  In 1995 the Ohio legislature passed a joint resolution honoring me as one of Ohio’s finest citizens for my leadership in organizing constituents to work with the legislature on behalf of people with disabilities and their families.  I felt like I was a wonderful man.  In 2010 I was removed from being kept nude in jail isolation and dressed in orange pajamas, full body chains, and flip flops taken through the snow and dragged into court charged with domestic violence and inducing panic.  I knew I had become totally worthless and my life was over.  Further I knew I was there because of my family (despite the fact that my family was fighting valiantly to get me out and to help me.)  I was destroyed, and worse yet, I would never be able to use alcohol again to treat my pain.  I could never drink again.

The last two years here on this Blog have chronicled my/our story since.  

-NOW-

After the worst passage of my life, thanks to my family, and treatment, and my psychotherapist, and lots of searching, I AM ME.  I suspect the recent medical development of adding l-methyl folate supplementation has corrected a fundamental neurological problem in my life permitting me to overcome longstanding undiagnosed (prior to two years ago) depression.

I feel I am me.  Not me because of what I do.  Not because I am retired, or treasurer of my homeowners association, or a father, or a husband, or well-educated, or Dominant, or Top, or bottom, or switch, or professional, or experienced, skilled. criminal, alcoholic, gastric bypass patient, thin, sixty-three, dry drunk, social activist,
Executive Director, BDSM practitioner, former jail inmate,. rebel, probationer, or whatever other descriptors.  I have been all these things.  They have effected me. They are not me.  I am me.

-Me-

I am made up of an almost unquantifiable number of cells which are all comprised of atoms.  These atoms are 99.9 % blank space.  This blank space is, we now know, comprised of energy, i. e., power. We all are.  Everything that is, is made up of atoms comprised of 99.9% space, energy, power.  The universe is patterned after this model or else, who I am is modeled after the universe, or we both share this model, or they both just are.  But in any case this is what is.

I have spent much of the last year questioning what “spirituality” is.  It is the effect of invisibe forces on physical reality.  It turns out just about all of physical reality is, in its very essence, unseen force----i. e., energy.  I am an integral part of all that. We all are.  Everything is.  I realize this lacks a lot of the voodoo which the spiritual perspectives of many contain.  It is mine...now.

I , my ego, is, my conscious perception of this reality....whether my personal reality, or the larger macro reality.  I am not a social role.  What others perceive me to be has no effect on who I am.  I am just me.  I may play or not play whatever piece I choose to in participating in the social role game.  Still, I will always know I am me.  Even if I do something that counts, it cannot change who I am. I cannot become greater or less.

I am me.  I am an integral part of everything.

I feel the best I ever have.  I am sure my sobriety is making me feel better than my drinking ever did or could have.

It is day 730 and I am me.  Being me is a new adventure.

Tom

Rumpelstiltskin

As the second anniversary date of His sobriety approaches, Tom has focused intently on the counting that is His way of grasping the passage of time.  Because 2012 was a leap year, it turns out that the mathematical calculation of two years (2 x 365 days) and the calendar date which would mark that life shift from two years ago, are not the same day.  As it happens, while the math might indicate that the 730 days that should need to pass for two years to have flowed along, the calendar tells us that the anniversary (January 18) falls on day 731.  Being Tom, He began campaigning, weeks ago, for TWO anniversary celebrations instead of just one.

Being Tom, He seemed to have a difficult time grasping the possibility of a "NO" regarding that idea.  He has been a total noodge about it, as a matter of fact.  Somewhere along the way, in the spirit of this new "switchy" model we've adopted, I declared that we could do two anniversary observances:  one day when we would spank Him 730 times, and one day when (according to the calendar), we could legitimately mark the passage of two years.  And so the game was joined.  We have bantered and teased back and forth, back and forth -- always with that number, 730, looming out there; making Him squirm and protest.  It has been great fun.

Over the weekend, we began that spanking event.  Over my knee, He got 200 swats, and I agreed that they could serve as the down payment on the BIG spanking event.  The good news, I told Him, was that there would only be 530 spanks to go.  :-D

He whined and wheedled and worked my last nerve trying to wriggle out of the whole business.  Finally, I made Him a bargain:  guess my confirmation name (that left over artifact of my Catholic upbringing), and I'd cancel the remaining 530 spanks.  My poor Tom, who was raised as a Presbyterian, was all at sea in the face of deciphering the panoply of Catholic saints' names.

I figured I had this one...  No way was He going to guess that arcane bit of personal lore.

Well, not to be deterred, He launched in, listing names one after the other:  Mary, Martha, Joan, Elizabeth, Anne, Rose, Gertrude, Bertha, Ruth...  On and on He went, and I just kept saying "no, no, no..."  Then, out of the blue, He said, "Louise?"  I was stunned -- so stunned, that He went right on listing more names as I tried to pick my jaw up off the floor.

"You got it!  How did You do that?"  He was, frankly, as surprised as I was, but not so surprised that He hesitated even a minute before gloating:  "No spankings for me!  I am looked over by the patron saint of getting away with stuff!"

He does that "picking things out of the air" thing way too often for it to be coincidence.  It is a little freaky -- or maybe a LOT freaky.  Whatever.  There will be no "anniversary" spanking for Him tomorrow.  Unless, of course, He decides He really wants one ;-)

swan

Daughter Update

I do not have much information, and some of what I have is "conflicting," but it does seem that she is "safe."

It could be that she is "ill" and perhaps in the hospital.  I am being given no details by the friend that gives me that information.  I suspect that, if that story is true, then she may be in a mental hospital.  I do not know why.

It could also be that there was some sort of altercation between her and some guy.  My son reports that he has been told by her "boyfriend" that she had a fight with some guy, broke his glasses and his phone, and he called the police.  In that case, she is locked up on a parole violation.

I can't really verify either story at this point.  It is likely that neither one of them is really "good" news, but since I was imagining that she might be lying dead in some field somewhere...

Well...

Yeah.

Thank you all for all your thoughts.  I do appreciate it.

swan

Worried

Today is my daughter's birthday.  She is 35 years old.  At least I hope so...

She has "vanished...dropped off the radar.  She does not answer her phone.  She does not answer messages left on her Facebook page.  She does not respond to text messages.

I am worried.

Maybe she has just gone quiet.  Maybe she is there and just out of communication.  I don't know.  I only know that, in the past, when Sarah has "become invisible," it has not been a good thing.  It generally portends legal trouble and a drop into drug use.

I am trying not to imagine horrible things.  I am trying to remain calm and patient.  I have no choice but to wait this out.  But, oh..., my heart is aching tonight.

Thank you for listening.

swan

ALICE?

I have not known what to say about the terrible events of December 14, when 20 young children and their teachers were murdered in their school.

In the ensuing days, I have been keenly aware of the young lives that are entrusted to my care each day.  There are one hundred and ten children that travel through my classroom every day, and another 300 plus who are younger students in our building.  I cannot help but wonder, as I look at all those young faces, what I would do; what I could do in the event we ever came under attack by a gunman in our building.  It is a bit of background noise in the busy rush of my days.  I am not focused on it; not obsessing over it -- but it is there.  Always.

On the 15th of this month, our local police department will come to conduct the first of several planned training programs with our faculty and staff.  Like law enforcement agencies around the country, ours has adopted an approach to the potential for an active shooter in a school building that is known by the acronym A.L.I.C.E. (Alert / Lockdown / Inform / Counter / Evacuate).  I don't know much about it yet.  I do know that it is controversial.  I do know that it teaches that, in an incident with an armed intruder, the thinking is that it may be better to have students throw textbooks and chairs than huddle in locked closets.

I am uneasy with the whole idea.  I don't know what to think.  But then, I think about someone bursting into my safe, welcoming, comfortable classroom with a gun and threatening my kids -- and yeah, I'd take the bastard on with whatever I had at my disposal.

swan

Some of What I've Learned Heading into 2013

I am actually feeling happy and excited heading into this new year.  Life feels nothing like it did even a month ago. I am happy.  We are happy.  We feel like we are united in a family...our family..... and we want our lives.  Most amazingly I feel like I want my life.  Sure I'd like us to have more money, or even greater health, or a variety of circumstances some superfluous and others more significant, but I can say, without reservation, I am glad for my life.  That is stunningly new for me.  It has been years since I could say this.  I feel like I have a number of realizations as I head into 2013. These are some that come to mind.

I was ill. I was actually physically..... medically ill.  My alcohol issues and the behavior problems they spawned were a result of my gastric bypass surgery.  My terrific depression was a result of a crucial substance in my brain that was deficient (L methylfolate) resulting from the same surgery.   Life is suddenly good again with the replacement of that substance and abstinence from drinking.  Those who told me that I was nothing but a dry drunk, or that I needed to have my character flaws and sins removed by some mythical higher power after weekly confessing alcoholism in religious cult meetings (i. e. AA), or that I had to accept I am powerless in my life, or a whole variety of other superstitious lies were wrong.  I am not a criminal and should never have been treated as one.  I needed and deserved treatment not punishment, public humiliation, and abuse.  Most importantly I was mistaken believing these people and incorporating their beliefs about myself in my self-concept.  Many of the people who did these things meant well.  Some needed to elevate their own feelings about themselves by feeling superior to me.  Whatever their motivation they were hurtful, and are not friends. The government and public officials who did this were, and are, evil.

I am not superhuman. Neither am I subhuman. There are worse people than I.  I try to do good things.  I used to do a huge amount of good things in the world.  In fact that was my career's mission.  Perhaps I can return to some of that in the year ahead.

There are many things I like, value, and/or believe.  A couple of weeks ago chatting with sue she and I brainstormed this list.  My therapist, Judy, had suggested I begin looking at my spirituality and this might be a starting point in that exploration.

• communication
• fine whips
• intimate sharing
• laughter
• tears
• pain
• joy
• breath
• altered consciousness
• dyslexia
• rain
• snow storms
• the road
• driving
• unique intense thought
• Coleridge
• Swinburne
• Dickinson
• Twain
• Elliot
• music
• writing
• Bob Dylan
• JamesTaylor
• trumpet solos
• hand bell music
• percussion.............tympanies
• fighting for good
• politics/intuition
• searching for answers to unanswerable questions
• rebellion
• creating change
• teaching
• seeing growth
• growing

There is nothing exhaustive about this list. But it is a beginning at delineating what matters to me.

Much of my energy has been derived from my eros. That has been, and is still, deeply ingrained in sadomasochism and particularly adult consensual spanking. This is somewhat different than before. I am to a much larger extent a switch. I don't appear much more submissive in my personality, but more inclined to experience that sensual erotic transaction from both ends of the power exchange continuum.

I am less in pursuit of NRE (i. e,. new relationship energy) than I was. There was a time not that long ago that I craved the rush of NRE. Then, I had had that so recently in my life with t and sue that I wanted more of it. It was not unlike an addict wanting to recreate the initial rush of a newly discovered opiate addiction. I don't need that anymore. I struggle to imagine why I would want to have a relationship with any others besides t and sue with whom I have such depth and history. What would we talk about.....do? We three have been through so much, have had such joy but too have put each other through such amazing suffering, anger, and despair yet through it all could not bare to be apart, or to lose the connection we all have together at a transcendent level. Thank god I have them both, still, in my life.

Similarly,I see fabulously beautiful young women and am not at all immune from projecting onto them my erotic fantasies, but also cannot imagine were we to relate, what in the hell would we talk about? What commonality in our history, experience, life passages, would we use as a basis for sharing who we are? What could they afford me that I don't already have in my two gloriously dynamic relationships?

Despite that, too, I do still find that I would like to share what I have learned in my practice of adult erotic power exchange driven SM. I spent much of my life fearing my own identity, feeling huge guilt at how "perverse" I believed my inner most needs were, ignorant of the techniques of adult sensual spanking and related arts., etc. I would like to share what I have learned with others, preferably with my two accompanying me.

Looking back over my life I am, and have always been, polyamorous. I find monogamy sad and ludicrous for me in my life. I respect everyone's choices for their lives, but for me attempting to only feel love once and forever seems so silly and narrow that it is hard to imagine how one would want to live so limitedly, and experience so little.

As I go into 2013 I feel like a Rip Van Winkle reawakening after years of sleep locked in a nightmare. Thank god I am alive!!!!!

All the best,

Tom

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.

Words at the Turning of the Year

We are enjoying this new year holiday together.  Truthfully, we are almost childishly surprised and pleased by our own happiness on this winter day.

I am aware that it is the custom to offer some kind of words of review or perspective as the year turns, but I don't seem to feel very wise -- only softly contented.  So, let me offer some words from Marcel Proust, who seems to me to have been peering into our lives in this passage:

Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind.

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

Love is a reciprocal torture.

All our final decisions are made in a state of mind that is not going to last.

If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time.

Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey.

Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible.

People can have many different kinds of pleasure. The real one is that for which they will forsake the others.

People wish to learn to swim and at the same time to keep one foot on the ground.

We must never be afraid to go too far, for truth lies beyond.