"Car Talk"

Car Talk is a radio talk show broadcast weekly on NPR stations throughout the United States and elsewhere. Its subjects are automobiles and repair, and it often takes humorous turns. The hosts of Car Talk are brothers Tom and Ray Magliozzi, known on the air as Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers. 

I have never been a fan of the radio show, "Car Talk."  I find it jarring and jangling.  The hyena laughter annoys the crap out of me, and I tend to feel like the callers are hand picked for their willingness to appear stupid/foolish on the air.  It is, to my way of thinking, a clear sign that the force that drives the universe is perverse and mean-spirited, that I keep ending up in relationships with people who just love the show -- who would rather do almost anything except miss a "Car Talk" broadcast.  Mostly, I just grin and bear it.  One of those "submission" things they don't tell you about when they are trying to convince you that it is all hot and sexy all the time.

So, anyway...  Did I mention that we "played" on Saturday morning?  It is a time of renewal and "reinvestment" for the two of us.  We are spanking more and enjoying it more -- and that means that I am waking up to the sexual part of myself and the sexual part of who we are together.  Spanking, when it is good for me, is multi-layered.  It means a lot of different things at different times.  Spanking hurts.  That is a constant.  Always, there is the battle to get through it, into it, on top of it.  Spanking is connective for me.  The pain and the patterns and the rhythms, help me to feel Him and know Him more deeply and more intensely than otherwise.  I don't really understand it, I only know it is the reality.  And then, there is sex.  All of that pain, all of the energy, and the connection... can all serve to turn me on, make me horny.  Not always.  I am forever unpredictable and my responses are never automatic.  Especially since the hysterectomy, that experience of sexual excitement and arousal is elusive, fleeting, and fragile.  When I am "horny," I want.  I really want.  And that was the story yesterday morning after my spanking, after He and I had made love, after His orgasm...  I was ready to try for one of my own; to lie curled up in His arms and vibrate myself off into my own release.  

And that was when, He asked me to hand Him the radio remote so that He could turn on...  "Car Talk."

swan

Spanking and My Nose?

So...  We are spanking more.  And spanking more means that there are stories to tell about THAT part of our lives again.  Now, fair warning -- not all spanking stories are necessarily hot and sexy.  Sometimes, in the middle of a session, my mind is wrapped up around "getting through" whatever I encounter in the event.  This is one of those...

We didn't spank much over the last couple of years, but we are working our way back to it.  I don't remember having to "learn" my way into spanking play in the beginning -- but that was a long time ago.  As we move together back to sadomasochistic relating, I feel like a neophyte.  Spanking play is still erotically charged for me.  It is just hot and sexy, and as I have longed for it over the last two years, I think I imagined that, if we ever got back to it, I'd just jump right back into it where we left off.  That was probably silly...

So, here we are, and spanking is coming back into our relatedness.  It is good.  I want it and I want it to be good and I want to be good with it.  So, when we actually have time, and space, and we are both feeling good physically and emotionally, it is almost breathtaking if we actually get into spanking play.  That was this morning...

Yay!  Spanking!

One thing hasn't changed...  He still likes to jump right in just as soon as I manage to get bottom up.  I'm not even remotely settled in before He is smacking my butt.  One of the issues deriving from being "older" is that my joints creak and ache.  Things don't bend the way they once did.  I always feel like I need to rustle around and wrangle myself into some sort of halfway comfortable spot ... so that I can concentrate on the spanking and not be all wrapped up in the fact that my elbow or my shoulder of my back is screaming.  Blech!  So, from my perspective, all that initial wiggling and squirming is sort of necessary.  Otherwise, I'm fighting the achy old lady joints all the way through -- which just makes things harder than they need to be.  This morning, I finally got myself settled, and He was back there, behind me, whacking away on my backside -- and I suddenly realized that my nose was all stuffed up.  Breathing was suddenly very difficult.  All that panting and breathing that I tend to do as a way to process the pain and find the energy was nearly impossible.  Achy joints and stuffy nose, and still He was spanking me harder and harder.  I did finally find a tissue that had been stuffed under my pillow overnight, and managed to quickly, during a break in the action, blow my nose and clear my airway enough to breathe a little easier.  It was a huge relief!

And so, breathing in rhythm with the blows He was raining down on my ass, I found my way into the waves of energy, and slipped into the good place of it all.

It was a good morning....

swan

Abject Obedience

Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves. 

~~Oliver Goldsmith~~

It has grown quiet and gentle in our lives since we discovered the roots of the debilitating despair and depression that gripped Tom, and with Him our whole family.  The addition of the metabolic supplement, L-methylfolate, created a balance that was, quite possibly absent throughout His entire life -- and restored Him to clear-eyed, happy, sanity.  When the darkness cleared, everything changed.  The storms that nearly tore our world to shreds ended, and suddenly we are alive together in a reality that feels so much better than what was … It is also true that there is much about that new reality that seems foreign; unfamiliar in a host of ways.  

On one level, I have been glad for the changes.  It is good to not be caught up in a continual fight for survival.  It is good to not be constantly afraid of what the next moment might bring; good to find stability and consistency and sanity.  However, I have also been prone to question who we are now -- what is it that we have left now that we don’t have all that fire and fury and frantic struggle?  
He seems content to just let us be what we are, and to see us become what we will become.  He does not appear to feel the need to define our relationship or our roles.  When I have fussed about it, He looks bemused, and suggests that we can just be Tom and Sue.  I have lain awake nights, railing in my mind, at the ordinariness of that -- just Tom and Sue.  How many couples must there be who are “just Tom and Sue?”  I’d imagine that those who have followed me along these many years might not be surprised by that bit of mental fussiness -- is it funny?  Probably.  
Were we extraordinary when we styled ourselves “Master and slave?”  Was my capacity to serve somehow more than that of any other loving partner, and was the erotic bent toward sadism and masochism that He and I shared sufficient to set us apart from others who enjoyed a powerful and passionate erotic love?  For whatever reason, I had myself convinced that the love we shared was “special,” and that my drive toward submission and masochism, paired up with His sadistic and dominant personality traits, constituted a formula for perfect and unmatched love.  I guess I needed to feel superior and special, like He and I were fated, star-crossed, meant to be -- for always and in all ways.   
I have, through months of therapy, and through all the agonies of recovery through which we have passed, bemoaned the loss of my “slave” status.  There is irony in that, is there not?  After all, what sort of “status” ought to accrue to one who is truly “slave?”  I know it makes no reasonable sense, but I have felt that as a loss -- and grieved accordingly.  On more than one occasion, Judy, my therapist has challenged me on the issue of whether I really wanted, or was prepared to give Him (or anyone, for that matter) what she termed “abject obedience.”  It has remained, between us, a question that I have avoided answering directly.  I have, over time, come to terms with the undeniable reality that I have clear limits, and will act to protect my life and well-being when those things are threatened.  I have accepted that as a fact, and I am clear that it is appropriate that I maintain those boundaries.  I am even willing to acknowledge that my failure to establish and defend those boundaries contributed to the huge crisis that befell our family.  That was my responsibility and I did not manage it well.  But, still...  I have believed that, somehow, my failure to offer that level of obedience in that awful moment cost me the depth of intimacy that was wrapped up in the M/s dynamic He and I shared.  I have believed that.
Back in August of 2009, I wrote at length on the subject of “mindful obedience.”  That piece grew out of a question about “mindless” obedience, and it was a pretty easy step off to turn mindless into mindful and then hold forth about what that meant to me.  I’m not ashamed of the writing there, but I am a little squrimy about the contrast with my actions and choices in the moment of crisis.  Still, I have been unable, when pressed, to give a full and direct assent to the idea of “abject obedience.”  So, maybe it is time for me to consider the questions that phrase raises for me...
The word, “abject” comes from Middle English, and before that from the Latin abjectus -- to cast off or reject; literally, “to throw away.”  In modern usage, it implies a sense of hopelessness or resignation.  And so, to offer “abject obedience” would be to become obedient out of a belief that there was  no other path, no way beyond, nothing at all to be gained by any other course.      
I think that, as life spiraled out of control here, I did move toward hopelessness.  There was nothing that I would not have done to bring Him out of the addiction that nearly destroyed Him -- and all of us.  There was also, in the depth of my being, a knowledge that my love and service, and yes, even my obedience was never going to be enough to break the hold that alcohol had on Him.  I grew up with alcoholic parents.  I raised an addicted child.  I knew the truth, and so my continued obedience was, in fact, “abject.”  I was resigned to the increasing distance between us, to the escalating anger and bitterness, to the recriminations and bitterness and accusations and abuse.  I knew, in some deep and wordless part of my mind that nothing good could come to us along the path we were traveling, and I had no hope of any sort of rescue or reprieve.  That is the abject obedience that I offered my Master in the last weeks and months before that part of our life finally ended.  It was pitiable and pale and lifeless.  It was a poor, poor sort of submission I gave in those days.
So much for the high-minded, and prettified version of “mindful obedience” that I once detailed for another.  THAT sort of obedience would have found a way; would have sought out appropriate help and taken the risks to assure that He received the help He needed.  That sort of active, listening obedience would have been selfless enough to withstand His anger in order to find the resources that He needed to break free from the demons that were pursuing Him.  That sort of slave would have never given up hope; never settled for what became our daily reality; never allowed for some kind of resignation to whatever would come.  What sort of slave “resigns?”
So, the answer to the question about “abject obedience” is that I will not offer that to Him again.  I am ashamed that it was what I gave Him in the moment when He most needed my strength, my integrity, my intelligence, and all my effort and energy directed toward His well-being.  I understand that, given the road we have traveled to this point, we are lucky to be still alive, still together -- and I am in awe of the fact that He still loves me and wants me.  We are, clearly, better than we were a year ago, or two years ago...  We are healthy and happy and amazed to have this life together.  He is right.  We are who we are.  We will be who we will be.  And, to be just Tom and Sue is not ordinary at all -- it is the most wonderful and extraordinary thing imaginable.  Perhaps that highly charged label, “slave,” is gone forever from our relational lexicon.  Perhaps that is all for the good.  I hope to grow into the woman He wants and needs; to love Him well and with all the best that is in me; and I hope to live the always and all ways that I promise.  If I can come to a place of doing that, I believe that will be enough.
swan

Cared For

Migraine.
I suffered my first migraine attack when I was 9 years old.  In those years, I didn't really know what it was.  I only knew that my neck would hurt terribly, and then I'd be knocked down with a headache that sent me off to bed, sick and crying and miserable.
After nearly 50 years, I've battled the monster in my head using every sort of trick I could find.  I've used a host of medications:  preventative and abortive and those intended to "manage" the pain.  I've tried sinus remedies and decongestants and homeopathics and herbal medicines.  I've studied biofeedback and accupressure, and I've tried chiropractic.  I can give you the list of things that trigger migraine attacks for me:  flickering lights, and intense fragrances, and MSG, and nutrasweet, and...  Oh yeah, and big, stomping weather fronts.
I've seen doctors for years in the search to find a way to live with my migraines.  Mostly, doctors who claim to "specialize" in treating migraine headaches are neurologists.  I believe that I've worked with some pretty good neurologists, and I think they were doing the best they could.  However, most neurologists have very broad practices.  Their waiting rooms are full of people with multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease, epilepsy and stroke, cerebral palsy and dementia,...  When I appear in the office of a neurologist and complain of chronic headaches, I can understand how easy it is to rank my issues way down on the list compared to the folks out front with REAL problems.  I get it.  AND, I still suffer, sometimes daily, pain and nausea and confusion and depression and anxiety, and all the rest that goes with my migraine attacks.
Recently, listening to NPR, we heard an interview with Teri Robert who has written one of the very best books on the subject of migraines.  Her book is full of up to date information and the latest research on this little understood neurological condition.  One of the enlightening bits was a discussion of a growing medical specialty area -- board certified headache specialists.  These doctors come from a variety of medical disciplines, but they share a common focus on the causes of, implications to,  and treatments for migraine and headache.  Here in Cincinnati, there are three of those very rare, certified headache specialists.
According to the 2010 US census, the Metropolitan Statistical Area that includes Greater Cincinnati, has a population of 2,130,151.  Some studies indicate that 13% of Americans suffer with migraine disease.  That calculates out to about 277,000 people here in our town.  So, our three board certified headache specialists are likely to be BUSY people.
As my headaches have increased in frequency and intensity in the last months, Himself has become more and more determined to get me to a doctor that can do something that can help.  When calls to our local specialists ran into roadblocks and gatekeepers, He jumped into His lifelong ADVOCATE mode.  There are times when it pays to have your very own, personal, medical establishment warrior.  He has spent hours and hours and hours tracking down the people in charge of making things happen in these practices, explaining and describing and insisting and badgering and ...  I don't even know what all else.  I've heard the frustration in His voice as He has battled on my behalf.  In the end, He has won the day.  I never doubted He would.  I have appointments with all three ...  March 11, March 14, and then (if it becomes necessary) on May 1 with the last one.  That is, for me, a relief... but it is so much more than that.
That battle, waged for me, speaks to His love and His care and His dedication to my well-being.  He wanted this for me, almost more than I wanted it for myself.  He chose to take up the challenge and make the calls and unravel the tangles and make it happen.  It gains Him nothing at all -- except, hopefully, my improved health and happiness.  There have been plenty of words written, here and elsewhere, about what it is to "belong" to another.  For me, right now, in this time and in this place, nothing makes it clearer that I BELONG to Him than that He would fight so hard on my behalf.  It is love made real in the real world of our real lives.
So, this is my story, but it is also my formal and sincere "Thank You" to the Man I love and serve:    Thank you, My Dear Tom, My Sir.  When I was too weak, too tired, too worn to fight this battle anymore, You made this happen, and I cannot ever tell You how grateful I am.  I love You with all my being.  Yours always and all ways...

swan

Sex Positive?

I have always believed that I am one of those who might be characterized as "sex positive."  The definition that I found is:

The sex-positive movement is an ideology which promotes and embraces open sexuality with few limits beyond an emphasis on safe sex and the importance of informed consent. Sex positivity is "an attitude towards human sexuality that regards all consensual sexual activities as fundamentally healthy and pleasurable, and encourages sexual pleasure and experimentation.

That all makes sense to me.  It works with regard to my own life, and I don't usually feel like I have any need to make judgments about other people's sexual proclivities or behavior.  So, yeah...  I really do believe that sex between consenting adults is essentially healthy and normal and pleasurable.  Go.  Have sex.  Enjoy the heck out of one another.  Why not?

Except.  There is just this one small thing.  My capacity to feel like that seems to not extend to the reality that my daughter, my youngest, has been arrested again (Yes.  AGAIN) for prostitution/solicitation.

I know there are plenty of "sex workers" out there, and it bothers me not one little bit.  But my girl?  The child I carried, birthed, nurtured, raised, worried about?  That little girl turned troubled woman?  No.  I know how I should feel about it, but I don't feel that way.  I hurt.  I want to cry.  There is a place where I get all technical and political and legalistic about the notion that ARRESTING WOMEN FOR PROSTITUTION is sexist and discriminatory and serves only to make criminals out of those who might probably be victims.  But, that doesn't really help.  My heart still breaks when I imagine my daughter turning tricks for money that she likely uses to buy crystal meth.

So, I guess that I am left with the ugly truth that it is easy for me to say that I am "sex positive" when it is YOUR DAUGHTER.

Sigh.
swan

Big Strong German Girl

For years, He has referred to me as "His big, strong, German girl."  I have been sometimes amused by that designation, and sometimes proud of it.  I've tried hard to live up to the not so subtle expectations embedded in that characterization.

I've been strong through sicknesses and surgeries; through healing and rehabilitation.  I've been strong through death and loss and sorrow.  I've been strong through addiction and despair and anger and desperation and depression.  I've been physically strong, fixing and repairing and maintaining the stuff of our lives.

I've been strong in the practice of submission, bending to His will through changes and challenges both large and small.

Now, as He proposes that He is ready to "reinvest" in our lives -- in the eroticism of SM play, in the expression of our poly relatedness, in some manifestation of the power exchange dynamic between us, I find that I do not feel strong.  I seem to have used up all my strength.  I feel needy and small and want only to curl up and be held and sheltered and protected.  I am not at all sure that wanting those things is a "fair" place for me to be, and I am not at all sure that He is ready to take that on.  I think that He and I are both tentative about trusting in the way we once did.  We are learning what we can believe in, and what we can trust.  It is a process.

It is hard to explain.  It is hard to understand.  I often don't know what or how to feel about any of it...  I am, I think, still strong, but I am also that needy, frightened, lost bit of human.  It feels a lot like this:

For Strong Women by Marge Piercy

A strong woman is a woman who is straining.
A strong woman is a woman standing
on tiptoe and lifting a barbell
while trying to sing Boris Godunov.
A strong woman is a woman at work
cleaning out the cesspool of the ages,
and while she shovels, she talks about
how she doesn't mind crying, it opens
the ducts of the eyes, and throwing up
develops the stomach muscles, and
she goes on shoveling with tears
in her nose.

A strong woman is a woman in whose head
a voice is repeating, I told you so,
ugly, bad girl, bitch, nag, shrill, witch,
ballbuster, nobody will ever love you back,
why aren't you feminine, why aren't
you soft, why aren't you quiet, why
aren't you dead?

A strong woman is a woman determined
to do something others are determined
not be done. She is pushing up on the bottom
of a lead coffin lid. She is trying to raise
a manhole cover with her head, she is trying
to butt her way through a steel wall.
Her head hurts. People waiting for the hole
to be made say, hurry, you're so strong.

A strong woman is a woman bleeding
inside. A strong woman is a woman making
herself strong every morning while her teeth
loosen and her back throbs. Every baby,
a tooth, midwives used to say, and now
every battle a scar. A strong woman
is a mass of scar tissue that aches
when it rains and wounds that bleed
when you bump them and memories that get up
in the night and pace in boots to and fro.

A strong woman is a woman who craves love
like oxygen or she turns blue choking.
A strong woman is a woman who loves
strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly
terrified and has strong needs. A strong woman is strong
in words, in action, in connection, in feeling;
she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf
suckling her young. Strength is not in her, but she
enacts it as the wind fills a sail.

What comforts her is others loving
her equally for the strength and for the weakness
from which it issues, lightning from a cloud.
Lightning stuns. In rain, the clouds disperse.
Only water of connection remains,
flowing through us. Strong is what we make
each other. Until we are all strong together,
a strong woman is a woman strongly afraid. 

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.