DougK

With all respect, I don't think that spanking is the same as racquetball at all. There is far more emotional involvement with spanking than racquetball, and the need that many of us feel for spanking is far greater than I've heard of anybody having for racquetball. Has anybody heard of a "racquetball needs" forum? I think this makes getting our spanking needs met outside of a relationship far more complicated. For some people, just distinguishing spanking from sex works, and their partners are OK with anything going on outside the relationship if it doesn't involve sex. I suspect, however, that many people are more of the type mentioned by Gingerlee, where jealousy is going to be involved if a partner gets deep emotional needs met elsewhere. Or, even if not jealousy per se, it can still involve an incredible amount of disappointment or hurt. I think many of us have the ideal that we're supposed to be able to meet our partner's deep needs. Whether it's true in reality or not, many of us search for our "soulmate" in our partner, and it's hurtful to find out that there's a deep emotional need that we can neither understand not meet--it's very hard not to feel like a failure as a partner in those cases. Mind you, I have absolutely no idea how to deal with this situation, which is unfortunately common, where partners don't understand or are unable to meet either other's spanking needs. But I think we need to be honest and recognize that our partners have legitimate concerns and feelings of their own, and it's unrealistic in many cases to expect them to be blasé about going outside the relationship for spanking, even if it's kept entirely nonsexual.

This may well depend on the gender. After men orgasm, arousal typically ends, so there's nothing to mask the pain. But for women, arousal can continue, so I don't think there's the same level of pain intensification. At least that's my understanding, without personal experience, so I'll leave a definitive answer up to those who do have that personal experience.

I think you just totally made my point. To me, there's a difference between "totally clean record" and "law abiding." I, too, have a totally clean record but I also have committed some of the acts I mentioned above. If you haven't, more power to you--although I confess I find it hard to believe that you actually have never, ever, broken *any* law of any sort. To bring this post back to the actual topic of the thread, how important do you think it is that a mentor or spanker follows all laws? How do the er and ee agree on which laws are important?

I've seen this said before, in a number of places, and I've always wondered if that expectation is anywhere near as clear as it sounds. Shygurl, I'm not picking on you; you just happened to say it most recently, and piqued my thoughts. Nothing I say here is directed at you personally. There are many laws that are routinely violated that I wonder whether people really expect their er's to be entirely law abiding. Most obviously, there's speeding, which most everybody does at some time or another, to some extent. Or any number of other traffic laws (signaling before changing lanes, not having broken tail lights, etc.). Then there's the whole range of substance laws, including alcohol, cannabis, and harder drugs. Is occasional use of cannabis a disqualifier? What about if one is in a state that has legalized it (but it remains federally illegal)? What about recreational use of other drugs? What about driving when you're not sure you're under the alcohol limit? What about sharing a prescription drug with a friend (e.g., Vicodin or migraine relief)? What about letting a 20-year old share a drink? And a bunch of financial or property laws. What about fudging on one's taxes? Or paying them late? What about sharing one's Netflix account with a friend? What about copyright violations, including downloading music, or ripping a CD or DVD? Then there's a range of deliberate violations of law for moral reasons. Maybe failure to register for the draft. Or peaceful trespass (either private or government property) to protest an entity's actions. Or destruction of property being used for what the person believes are immoral purposes (e.g., animal testing, abortion, military)? I'm sure there are many, many more examples that aren't immediately springing to mind. I'm not saying that all of these are acceptable acts, but I'm willing to bet that most of us think that *some* of them are acceptable, and that we continue to think of people that do them are "law abiding." The problem is that I'm also willing to bet that we don't all agree on which of the acts are acceptable. So when you say "law abiding" you might mean one set of things, but when I hear "law abiding" I might assume you mean a different set of things. Obviously it doesn't much matter when speaking in generalities, as in this thread. But it can matter a lot when actually evaluating a person as a potential partner (romantic, spanking, business, whatever)--and lead to unpleasant surprises down the road if expectations aren't clarified. Unfortunately, I have not the slightest clue as to how one would actually go about clarifying expectations. I just can't see sitting down with a potential partner and saying "speeding is OK as long as it's no more than 5 miles over the limit, and recreational cannabis use is OK, but civil disobedience is a deal-killer, as is fudging on taxes" and going on ad nauseum about every law one can imagine. I fear that this is one of those things that we just tend to find out over time, and hope our initial expectations aren't too far apart. For example, it's safe to assume that everybody agrees that murder doesn't count as "law abiding." Sorry, shygurl, for this digression from your excellent post.

There's a lot to unpack here, so I'm just going to respond to different parts of your post in no particular order. 1) It should be noted that Sadie never used the word "abuse." That term was used by somebody else. What Sadie expressed was that the actions were wrong, and that it violated the trust she had in the er. That's somewhat different than an accusation of abuse. 2) I'm not quite sure, CoL, why you're making a big deal, in this thread alone, out of not having the full story. The same can be said for every other thread. We always have only what the poster says to go by, and no proof that it's true. That's equally true for somebody who posts that their partner loved a spanking and for somebody who posts they were grabbed by a stranger and raped. It's quite possible that both statements are entirely true, but it's also quite possible that the statements are false, either because the poster deliberately lied, or because their personal perceptions don't match the perceptions of others. I am *not* accusing anybody of lying here, in this thread or any other. I'm just saying that we have no way of knowing. Personally, I take everybody's statements at face value, unless there's something that just doesn't ring true to me. I just don't understand why the same standard isn't applied to this thread as it has been to other instances where people say they have been violated. 3) Does it matter what the motivation of the er was? I don't think abuse requires intent to abuse. If somebody violently shakes a child, that's abuse, even if the motivation is just to quiet the child. Certainly it makes it easier to evaluate if we know there's a motivation to abuse. But I just don't think that's usually the case. People don't *intend* to abuse others; they're just heedless of the consequences. If a drunk hits his wife, most likely the intent is to shut her up, or teach her respect, or something else, and the drunk feels totally justified--but it's still abuse. If I give money to a banker to invest for me, and he instead uses it to cover his own personal financial difficulty, that's a violation of the trust I placed in him, even though his intent is totally self-centered, not to deliberately hurt me (after all, he no doubt believes he'll be able to pay it back later). I think the same is true when it comes to looking at the actions of an er; it's the actions that matter, not the motivation. 4) I'm puzzled by the black and white way the discussion of this situation has gone, in both this and other threads. It feels to me like people think there are only two ways to view the situation: either the er is an abuser or the er did nothing wrong at all. I think there's actually a whole lot of middle ground. When something goes wrong with a spanking, there are more ways to view it than just accident or abuse. Just off the top of my head, there's mistakes, unfamiliarity/incompetence, and negligence. 5) I'm also puzzled, CoL, by your consideration of the significance of a safeword not being used. I don't think this is really what you mean, but it kinda comes across as you thinking there can't be any sort of misconduct unless it involves the er ignoring a safeword. I would hate for any er to get the impression that the existence of a safeword is a "get out of jail free" card, and enables the er to do whatever they want until/unless the ee uses the safeword. The fact is that safewords simply aren't a silver bullet to ensure that a spanking is safe. It's quite possible for situations to arise (such as the current one) where the ee doesn't know there's a problem until it's too late. Maybe they don't know there's a problem, or maybe by the time they know, it's already happened--consider an implement hitting the tailbone. So *maybe* a safeword can help keep a situation from deteriorating further, but it can't prevent problems in the first place, and neither an ee nor an er should rely on them as their only defense. Putting all of this together in regard to the current situation, I see a lot of things that went wrong. First, I'm not sure that the ee and er were on the same page regarding the importance of not having marks. Sadie certainly says she was clear about it, but it's less clear to me whether the er really understood that. Second, it sounds like the actual equipment used to transmit/receive the video was inadequate, although one or both may not have been aware of that. Third, when Sadie expressed concern about marks during the spanking, those concerns weren't taken seriously. The er did not adequately examine whether bruising was happening, and did not ask Sadie to verify it with a mirror, nor did Sadie break off the spanking to verify it herself. Finally, after the spanking was over, and Sadie became aware of the bruising, there seems to have been no aftercare: "No apology. No comfort." Personally, I put the most blame for the combination of all this on the er. Yes, Sadie could have stopped the spanking when she had doubts, either for good or temporarily to go check a mirror. In hindsight, it was foolish to trust the er's weak statements of "okay" and "don't worry." But far more lies on the shoulder of the er. He knew better than Sadie about the inadequate video. When concerns were expressed during the spanking, he didn't take any steps to address them--even knowing the video was poor. And when he was made fully aware of the problem afterwards, he did nothing to try to alleviate it, not even apologizing. It really feels like he just had no idea of the importance to Sadie of leaving no marks, or chose to ignore that importance. Either way, that violated her trust in him. I don't know that this goes as far as abuse, but in my book it goes well past accident and mistake, and is at least in the category of incompetence or negligence. And I think it's entirely inexcusable that there was no apology or comfort.

No, it really isn't clear enough for me. Once again, you're addressing only the ee's responsibility, not the er's. Do you think the er has any responsibility? What if an ee suspects an er is about to cross a limit, and questions the er about it? Do you think the er has a responsibility to address the ee's concern? If the er tells the ee that he hasn't crossed the limit and isn't going to cross the limit, is it still the responsibility of the ee to stop? What if the er fails to take the concern seriously, and falsely reassures the ee (either deliberately or out of ignorance)? Where does the responsibility lie then? What if the er has significantly more experience than the ee, and has led the ee to believe that safety is paramount in how the er acts? Should the ee give any weight to that? Or should ee's never trust er's? Personally, I don't think there are simple answers to this, and it's unfair to put all the blame or responsibility on either the ee or the er alone, at least without knowing a whole lot more about the specifics of a situation. Context matters a lot, and there are tons of variables.

If the ee has no one to blame but herself, that sure implies to me that the er has no responsibility. If that's not what you meant, I apologize. As for me, I've been clear from the start that both ee and er have responsibility:

Uh, in your very first post in this thread: "you have no one to blame but yourself."

I still think it's the spanker's obligation. If the er has any doubt about conditions, either by inadequate or nonexistent visual equipment (e.g., audio-only, what back in the old days was called "phone spanking"), then I think it's the duty of the er to tell the ee to check on her status with a mirror or other mechanism. That's exactly what your er did, FF--and exactly what all responsible er's should do. Yes, in an ideal world, the ee should do so on her own initiative as well. But that may or may not be feasible in a directed spanking situation--when the er is telling the ee to keep up a steady pace, it's a little difficult to both strike oneself and hold a mirror and check for results at the same time. Plus, let's not forget the emotional dynamics here. The whole point of a directed spanking vs. a self spanking is to *lose* control of the situation, to put oneself in the hands of the er, and pretend that the ee isn't the one doing the actual spanking. I would assume that also means trusting the er to decide what severity is appropriate, etc., and following directions as given. It's a little unrealistic to expect an ee to be able to flip back and forth in seconds between giving up control and then taking back control to use a mirror and then giving back control again. Especially under the stress of a spanking (both physical and emotional). On the other hand, if the er *directs* the ee to check condition, it maintains the dynamics of who is in control. I just don't understand why some people are so quick to absolve the spanker of any responsibility for taking care of the spankee simply because the spanking is done remotely.

I totally don't understand this discussion of the quality of *his* camera. It's *your* camera that was capturing the image of your bottom, not his. What's the resolution of your camera like? Does it provide a high enough quality picture that you could easily see a bruise? If so, his response makes no sense.

I agree with FF that people should stop and communicate if something doesn't feel right. But I think it's a huge leap to go from that to saying that "you have no one to blame but yourself." The fact is that *both* people have responsibility for their interactions, and one can't absolve oneself of responsibility by saying the other person didn't stop. It's a lot easier in hindsight to say "something didn't feel right" than it is to process that emotion at the time, especially in an unfamiliar situation where you expect to feel some degree of awkwardness and discomfort. If people stopped whenever they had the slightest doubts about anything, very few interactions would happen--and that's not limited just to the spanking world. In order to advance any relationship, we have to take risks and push beyond our comfort level to some extent. When it works out, we tend to forget that we had doubts, but when it doesn't work out, we tend to look back and say "that's the moment I should have stopped." Recognizing this level of uncertainty always exists, I believe it's always the responsibility of each person to look out not just for themselves, but also for the other person involved. And to err on the side of caution when it comes to safety, both physical and emotional. Yes, there are different degrees of abuse, neglect, assault, violence, etc. But to deny that there is misconduct simply because that conduct didn't rise to the level of physical overpowering is to deny the powerful role that emotions play in our lives. As a very rough analogy, consider theft of money. There's no doubt that physically attacking somebody and taking their money is wrong. But so is simply threatening to harm the person in order to take money. Or, more analogous to this situation, so is conning the person, spinning a story so that they voluntarily turn over their money. Sure, the victim there shouldn't have done so, and should have stopped as soon as they had doubts--but we still blame the conman. Surely somebody is in total control of their own email, but phishing is still wrong, and the target of phishing is not the only one to blame. Spanking situations are the same. We should all watch out for ourselves, but we should also watch out for our partners. Depending on the situation, we may be in a better position than our partners to recognize when something is going wrong, and it's doubly our responsibility to take care of those situations. Incidentally, this goes for both ee's and er's. While ee's are obviously more at risk of physical harm, er's have vulnerabilities too. Many an er has fallen for a catfishing situation online, leading to emotional and/or financial harm--and I think it's safe to say that the ee deserves blame there. Less obviously, ee's may manipulate an er into doing something the er isn't comfortable with; even though, the er could say no, I believe the ee shares responsibility for not pushing such a situation, at least if the ee is aware of the er's discomfort. Due to the inherent power dynamics, I do believe er's have a heightened duty of responsibility to watch out for ee's. Or as Spider-Man (and others) have noted, with great power comes great responsibility. It is our duty to address any concerns raised by our ee's, or which we notice on our own, and ensure their safety, both physical and emotional. Sure, we may fail in that duty occasionally, and I don't want to say that such failure equates to abuse. But if we simply choose to ignore that responsibility, I think that is neglectful at the least, and possibly abusive, depending on the situation.

I think we agree here. I don't think I said that people should have a narrow focus--if that's how it came across, it certainly wasn't my intent. People can, and should, have relationships of all forms with people who are not identical to themselves. But there are some limits to the extent of differences that are likely to lead to a happy relationship. For example, some spankos can certainly have relationships with non-spankos, even physical ones. But if the spanko has a very deep-seated need for spanking (rather than just a relatively small interest) and the non-spanko has a deep revulsion for spanking, I just don't see that working long term. Similarly, liberals and conservatives can be friends and romantic partners. But if one has a dyed-in-the-wool political persuasion, and thinks that those on the opposite end of the spectrum are despicable human beings, I don't see a meaningful relationship developing with somebody of opposing beliefs. And there are certainly plenty of people on both ends of the spectrum that are like that. So all I meant was that a woman who is a diehard Bernie Sanders supporter shouldn't think she has to go to a MAGA rally to find a dominant. Or vice versa. Of course, there are money others who have political beliefs of one form or another, but for whom it's not a driving force. I think it's much easier to cross political lines for those people. Ultimately, my main point was just that people shouldn't let their desires for spanking overcome all the other desires and interests in their lives. Just as most of us can't deny our spanking interests, we can't deny our other strong interests as well. And one shouldn't think it's necessary to do so in order to fulfill their spanking needs. If one has no interest in sports, it makes no sense to go to sporting events just because there are men there. But it certainly does make sense to go to places where there are men with common interests, drop hints, and cultivate interesting responses.

Yep, I've given spankings on back roads and in the woods. There was a *chance* that somebody would come by, which enhanced the thrill, but that chance was very low--and would almost certainly have freaked us both out if it actually happened.

I have to strongly disagree with this. This jumps full on into stereotypes of what dominant men are like--and like all stereotypes, it fits some people but is far from describing all of them. And just as it doesn't describe all dominants, it fails to recognize that not all women who want to be spanked fall into the same narrow categories. Does it really make sense to tell a politically liberal woman that the only way to find a dominant male is to go to a politically conservative meeting? Even if by some miracle it did lead to a spanking, it wouldn't lead to a successful long-term relationship. There's no reason to tell women they need to deny their own nature just because they want to be spanked. Both spankers and spankees come in all varieties. For example, I'm a dominant male spanker. But I'm also politically progressive in many ways, have no interest in shooting guns, have never hung out in sports bars or at sporting events, am agnostic, believe in feminism, and pretty much meet none of the groupings that you seem to believe are characteristic of dominants. Sure, that means I'm absolutely not the right fit for many submissive women. But there are many other submissive women for whom I'm a much better fit than anybody they would find by following the advice above. My point isn't that I'm better or worse than such men--it's that we're different, and women should search for the type that best fits them, rather than thinking they have to pretend to a whole different set of interests I'm a firm believer that "to thine own self be true" should be the first rule in searching for a partner, because in the long run that's the only way to find happiness. Multiple threads have discussed the fact that people can't deny their spanking interests in the long run and be happy with a vanilla partner, and I agree with that. But by the same token, people can't deny other equally important parts of their life and sacrifice them in order to be spanked for discipline. I agree with a lot of the other advice here. Use FetLife, local groups, etc. Frequent and participate in spanking and domestic discipline forums, sites, blogs, etc. Use online dating sites where you can specify or at least strongly hint at your interests. And pursue all the other normal methods of finding a partner, and drop hints about your need for discipline. There's no one magic silver bullet, and the whole process is hard. Heck, it's hard finding a partner in so many ways, and adding spanking/discipline on top just makes it harder. You have to just keep plugging.

I think it's inconsiderate of the other people. You're basically choosing to use them as a prop in your own scenario, and that may well be something they're uncomfortable with. For the same reason, I wouldn't have any explicit conversation in front of a waiter; it quickly gets into the "too much information" awkwardness. Maybe what you're doing won't have any legal consequences (though, as pointed out by others, just a "threat" of assault can get you in trouble), but it's not polite. Just as a couple making out at a restaurant table may be legally OK but still offensive to other diners. I'd advise keeping our disciplinary arrangements to ourselves, unless you're quite sure that the other people you're involving are OK with it.