Unwrapped

Merry Christmas and season's greetings! I've had a lovely few days at home with the boys, making, eating and drinking impressive quantities of delicious things, enjoying (and gently mocking) the Doctor Who Christmas Special, sitting round the fire playing silly parlour games, inviting friends over and all those other traditional midwinter activities. Hope you've had a restful and cheering time, whatever you've been up to.

D and I have also taken advantage of the time off work to jump each other's bones at every opportunity. We've had late-night Christmas Eve sex when I was exhausted and in pain and he methodically and selflessly took his time in making me feel better; tipsy post-prandial Christmas Day sex, giggly and uninhibited after too many champagne cocktails; and lazy extended Boxing Day sex, dipping in and out throughout a long mellow afternoon (and amusing Tom no end when he unwittingly disturbed us a couple of times). I particularly enjoyed having my breasts slapped with a small piece of wood D found which remarkably resembled a ruler.

    

Wishing you all a happy holidays, however you're spending them, and that you get to enjoy some quality time with your loved ones. Hope you've had as much fun unwrapping your presents as we have ours!

Let the turkey burn

D and I both seemed to be in odd moods last weekend. I, after being totally on top of things all week, was fragile, overtired and crashing, but desperately trying to brave it out and not be a needy little girl. Apparently it came out sounding like I was pissed off with everything, which suggests either that I'm not as good at braving it out as I think I am, or that D is better at reading me than I think he is. Or perhaps it suggests that sometimes, what I need is to be a fragile little girl. D, after all, is one of the few people I'm genuinely comfortable being small with, so I'm not sure why I was trying to fight it so hard.

Anyway, the resulting bickering was outdone by the truly electric make-up sex that came after it. Not normally a pattern D and I find ourselves in, but our emotional vulnerability lent itself to play of a remarkable rawness and intimacy.

At one point, being pushed with breathplay, my body suddenly went into an uncontrollable panic - emotionally I was alright but in three seconds I'd gone from turned on to hyperventilating, crying and shaking (and, okay, still turned on). Credit to D: he immedately stopped, held me, took my word for it when I said it was just a physical reaction and wasn't a big deal, and was perfectly happy to pick up where we'd left off as soon as I'd regained my composure. Sometimes, being pushed until I break can make me feel just as safe as my top taking care to push me without breaking me.

After a mutually satisfying, loved-up fuck he pulled three implements out of his toybox - cane, wooden paddle and belt. I'm looking at him half going WTF, we just finished, and half delighted that we aren't done yet.

"Pick one," he smiles.

Just one? I'm disappointed. I consider. We had fun with the paddle last time, so today I fancy something different. I suspect he wants to cane me - it's not an implement he plays with often, and the fact he's got it out suggests he's in the mood. But what I really want is the belt - the liquidy warmth of leather, the sharp but glowing sensation which wraps around my bottom like a caress.

"I'm surprised," he says when I make my choice (I think he was expecting me to opt for the cane), but he humours me: the belt is laid out on the bed, the other two put to one side.

Throughout a restful evening the belt is a teasing promise of what's yet to come. I was expecting to get it later that night, but tiredness overtakes us both and I fall asleep on him around 11pm.

The next day, dinner is in the oven and somehow we end up snapping at each other again. We talk through it but he needs some time to calm down, so I flop on the bed and distract myself with my netbook. Ten minutes later I hear him come in behind me. I'm wondering what mood he's in when I feel his touch, an affectionate stroke along my back. "Permission to glomp?" he asks hesitantly, and no sooner have I granted it I'm engulfed in a whole body hug. Well, there are worse ways to say sorry. I love the feel of his weight resting on me, and tell him there's no hard feelings by bumping my arse playfully against his hips from below.

Which is how I came to be facedown on the bed, jeans unbuttoned by him and tugged down over my bottom, which is lifted by a couple of strategically placed pillows and practically tingling with anticipation. The enormous mirrors alongside his bed had been making me feel self-conscious of my fuller figure all weekend, so I hid my face from them (as I had while over his knee the day before) and wondered if my over-emotional self would be able to cope with the thrashing I'd chosen.

Perhaps he was wondering the same; the first three strokes were light, testing the waters, warming us up. I breathed deeper and murmured my assent. The gentleness of his approach meant that when the harder strokes fell I lapped them up. I felt cocooned in love and security, safe to yelp and hiss through my teeth as the pain nudged against my thresholds, safe to moan into the bed when they hit that perfect sweet point of simultaneous pain and pleasure.

When the fire in my bottom was well and truly lit he paused and gave me a rub that almost made me purr. I felt like he could keep going all afternoon, except of course that dinner was still in the oven, and in fact I should have started putting the veg on ten minutes ago. "Shall we reconvene later?" he asked, not wanting to ruin the meal I'd started, but I had absolutely no desire to interrupt proceedings.

I was reminded of the Ann Summers ad I saw at Victoria station recently - a lady wearing sexy negligee and the slogan LET THE TURKEY BURN. At that precise moment I felt wholeheartedly in agreement with the sentiment. Let it burn. Dinner could wait. I had other priorities.

So D nipped out to turn the oven off, the veg was left sitting in cold water, and my bottom got cooked instead.

He re-appeared in front of me (I was still stretched out on the bed with my jeans around my knees and my arse glowing pink), grinning like a kid who's done something they shouldn't, holding up the two rejected implements. His grin widened as he waited for me to get the joke. "Pick one."

So that was his game. I hid my amusement and excitement with my best sardonic look. "Am I choosing what else I get, or am I choosing what else I get first?"

He beamed at me, delighted with his surprise and wanting to string it out, then relented. "First."

"Alright." I briefly compared the relative sensations and marking produced by belt-cane-paddle or belt-paddle-cane. The belt had left me nicely tender and the paddle is a very blunt instrument. I opted for nuance. "Cane."

He was surprised again, but given I'd thought I was done, that made two of us.

He made me thank him for the cane strokes, but not count them, so I don't know how many I got. They hurt, though, more than I'd expected after that languorous, sensual belting; every stroke a jolt of sting that fizzed and itched along the line of the welt, making me jump, making it impossible to relax. I hung onto the rail at the foot of the bed and gasped my way through a caning that pushed me more than I expected.

It had the desired effect, though. By the time he finished I was soaking wet. As he stood in front of me again and unzipped his jeans I pounced on his cock hungrily, eager and grateful. The pleasure of feeling it slide against my tongue made me close my eyes in bliss.

Skip ahead a bit (past me on my back with my head hanging off the foot of the bed so that he could slide deeper into my throat, stopping my airway - but not making me panic this time) and before long I definitely wanted to be fucked more than I wanted the paddle. I may have mentioned this aloud, because D tutted and thwarted my impatience with a reminder of earlier negotiations. "Mmm, not yet - you have to shave first, and put stockings and heels on, and all sorts of things."

He was referring to online chats in which we'd agreed that I'd shave my pubic hair for him over Christmas. I mildly prefer the appearance of trimmed hair, but I like to keep my labia and crack shaved for ease of access and silkier sensations. D has a strong preference for ladies and gentlemen who are completely shaved, a bias I'd find less forgivable if he didn't keep himself smooth in turn. It's too much faff for me to indulge all the time, but I enjoy variety, and I don't mind obliging him occasionally. If nothing else, I can usually expect to be rewarded with pleasingly enthusiastic cunnilingus.

I needed no further prompting. I jumped up to grab a razor and towel and headed to the bathroom.

It's strange - if you described this situation to me I might expect to feel somewhat indignant about having my pleasure forestalled until I'd corrected some lacking aspect of my personal grooming. Perhaps I should have been annoyed with his presumption. But as I perched on the side of the bath, shower foam mingling with the slippery evidence of my arousal, I felt supremely content. The act of revealing newly bare, sensitive flesh seemed remarkably like unwrapping a present for him, and I felt a similarly happy anticipation at the prospect of pleasing him. I hummed to myself as the razor slid delicately over my swollen labia, enjoying my awareness of the cane welts striping my arse. At that moment, cheerfully obeying his orders with a sore red bottom, I felt very, very loved.

--

We didn't get round to the paddle before dinner. Not that I'm complaining - events proved more than satisfactory (and so, when we eventually reheated it, did dinner). It wasn't until I was getting ready to leave that I was reminded of our unfinished business. I'd already missed one train due to not being ready in time, and was belatedly packing and trying to find my netbook case. I went into the bedroom to look for it. A little while later D came in to ask how I was getting on, and raised an eyebrow at the discovery of me on the bed, checking twitter on my netbook.

"You've packed all your things up already, yes?"

"Nearly!" I chirped, jumping up and hastily scooping up evidence to the contrary.

He looked at me. I looked innocently back, jamming netbook, socks and phone charger into my rucksack.

He picked up the paddle.

It was a fair cop. I bent over the end of the bed and lowered my jeans for my third and final dose of the weekend. I received several rapid, crisp whacks with no warm up which had an effect similar to that of a bucket of cold water. I squirmed and yelped throughout, a far cry from the submissive pleasure with which I'd taken the belt a few hours earlier. His raised eyebrows at my wimpy reactions made me wish I could turn my masochism on like a tap, but the paddling served its purpose. Suitably chastened, I tugged up my jeans and finished my packing with a smile on my face. I do like it when tops keep their promises.

UK porn ban?

A month ago, Tory MP Claire Perry called for British ISPs to implement an "opt-in" system for internet pornography based on age verification, to prevent under 18s from looking at sexually explicit content online, because she believed that "British internet service providers should share the responsibility to keep our children safe." Fortunately for us, culture and communications minister Ed Vaizey disagreed. "We believe in an open, lightly regulated internet," he said. "The internet is by and large a force for good, it is central to our lives and to our economy and Government has to be wary about regulating or passing legislation." Mr Vaizey suggested that taking responsibility for what your children see online and how they respond to it is kind of what parenting is all about.

Fine. Except that yesterday, Ed Vaizey made a dramatic U-turn by inviting ISP giants such as BT, Talk Talk and Virgin Media to a meeting to discuss how they might implement such a system. "I think it is very important that it's the ISPs that come up with solutions to protect children," he said, in a dramatic reversal of his stance four weeks ago.

This is worrying stuff for a whole host of reasons.

Firstly, there's the practicalities of implementing the scheme:

The plan is to allow parents to 'opt out' of the sites and they will then be blocked at the source, rather than using conventional parental controls.

Adults who wish to view the material would have to choose to 'opt in'.

Following their decision, homeowners would then be able to choose what sites they receive in a cinema style guide, such as U for all ages, or 18 for adults.

Got that? Unlike cinema style age controls, this wouldn't be an individual decision, but a blanket one across a household. In short, it falls into the same trap as the Digital Economy Act. In order to prevent their children from viewing porn, parents would have to give it up themselves. Adults living at home? Forget it - you're under your parents' roof, you follow their rules. Households of shared adults, like most Londoners who don't cohabit with a partner? You'd better have a good relationship with the housemate whose name is on the broadband account. What about students living in halls? Or adults who live with their landlords?

Either the system will impede the freedoms of adults across the country, or it will be so restrictive that no-one will use it. As Tom Scott writes for the Guardian:

Any "think-of-the-children" internet filter has a fundamental problem: if it's effective enough to actually block adult content, it will also be irritating enough that almost everyone will turn it off.

An effective filter would have to censor Flickr, which has a large amount of adult imagery. It has to censor every blogging platform: Tumblr, for example, has a whole swathe of porn blogs, and there are untold numbers of sex bloggers writing reams of explicit text. And it has to censor YouTube, particularly if 4chan decide to flood it with porn again. Facebook could probably be let through, thanks to its strong filtering policies – although right now, most mobile providers block it for under-18s anyway.

If an adult content filter allows those sites through, it fails. And if it blocks those sites, then hardly anyone will use it – and it fails.

The rest of the article is well worth reading, picking up on a number of reasons such an approach would be impossible to implement effectively.

Secondly, the 'research' and 'studies' cited to justify this idea are problematic at best. Violet Blue reveals how the study from Psychologies magazine quoted in most news repots was in fact conducted on 14-16 year olds from a single North London school - hardly comprehensive data - and Ms Naughty digs into Safer Media, the Christian group who believe whole swathes of modern media are "harmful", and from whom Ms Perry gets her "compelling evidence" that porn is damaging to under-18s.

I've written before about the myth that accessing pornography has a detrimental effect on young people and society in general. Bish Training, a sex ed resource for young people, summarises:

Even the briefest look on Google Scholar will show you that there is not a lot of rigorous academic research in this area. Arguments about porn, such as arguments about sexualisation, are usually values rather than evidence based. There is certainly no consensus in the academic world about young people and porn.

I would encourage you to read what I believe (I’m a practitioner, not an academic) to be the most thorough recent paper http://www.springerlink.com/content/c1k7r32gj9q72248/ It points out the lack of evidence of the extent of porn consumption and harms from previous research.

So much for evidence-based policy making. Claire Perry is quick to claim that "We are not coming at this from an anti-porn perspective," but the sketchy nature of the research backing up her proposals suggests that this is an ideological move. Her next remark clarifies this ideology: "We just want to make sure children aren't stumbling across things we don't want them to see." This isn't about the fear of children's sexuality: it's about an angry controlling impulse on the part of parents who cannot bear that their children might like anything they don't like, or have access to anything they don't approve of. To people like this the internet represents an enormous ideological threat. A 'nanny state' approach is the only way they can shut down freedom of speech and information for those who disagree with them.

Whose ideology will inform this proposed 'blacklist' of forbidden sites to be referenced by ISPs? (And who will maintain the list of 'opted-in' households? Bet Wikileaks would love the chance to share that.) 'Hardcore' pictures and video - okay. Text? Usenet groups? Fanfic? Chatrooms? Any site posting user-generated content would find itself at risk unless it implemented strict moderation policies. What about humourous sites which include obscene language? Or sex education sites like the excellent Bish Training, which includes guidance for young people about porn? Queer and trans activists are concerned that any site providing support and information about LGBT issues will be blocked - the mental health effects of which on young people could be far more devastating than those claimed to be caused by porn.

And then there's the civil liberties implications. Once a Great Firewall exists, what's to stop its expansion to include other controversial sites, or anything the government disapproves of? Maybe Maimed has recently argued that the censorship surrounding Wikileaks has always existed around sex. Once porn is banned from the internet, you can bet that other problematic content would find itself caught in the same net.

Every week, I get letters from kinky people who are grateful to me for helping them feel they are not alone. I hear from mature individuals who are only just beginning to discover the vocabulary to think about their desires, or to start to come to terms with them. I am so lucky, they tell me, to have become aware of my sexuality so young, to have accepted it and be able to find so much joy in it, and help other people make peace with themselves. Alongside the self-indulgence of creative work that turns me on, that's why I do what I do, and I wouldn't have been able to do it without the internet.

I started having sex about the same time as I got online - when I was 13. By the time I was 15 I'd started using the internet to explore sexuality and kink in a big way, but it didn't take over my life - I had many other hobbies and interests, and most of my online time was taken up with teaching myself HTML and design and creating vanity sites. I had my first serious play relationship when I was 16, which was very informed by the BDSM community I'd discovered online, and I met Tom when I was 19. I am enormously lucky to have been able to streamline my sexual development with the aid of online resources and support. If I hadn't been able to access sexual content at home, I would have made different, less well-informed choices; I might have made some very bad decisions; and I certainly wouldn't have reached a point where I could offer support and reassurance to others by my early twenties.

If you're worried about what your child is looking at online, either install some of the parental control software which is readily available, or sit with them while they browse the internet. Either way, talk to them about what they're seeing; teach them about staying safe online, give them the tools they need to question and critique what they encounter. Unlike our legislators, most UK kids are internet natives - they will easily be able to get around any controls we attempt to put in place. Trying to prevent them from accessing porn will simply increase its appeal. Ultimately, the responsibility for what we look at and how we respond to it is ours, and it falls to parents to teach that responsibility to their children, rather than dumping the hardest and most important parts of parenting onto corporations or the state.

--

All these things remain true, and given my audience I have little doubt that most of my readers will agree with me. Perhaps I didn't even need to write this, since today senior officials from the ISPs themselves have condemned the proposals as unworkable. But this is not the first time this idea has surfaced, and I doubt it will be the last. Thanks to the anti-porn agenda of over-anxious mothers, we have already seen our government ban certain types of consensual porn entirely. When it comes to freedom of sexual expression, we cannot trust our legislators, and we must remain vigilant. I'm willing to bet that the idea of a filtered web will come back, and when it does, we need to be ready with our arguments as to why it will not work, and cannot ever be accepted.

Both Cheeks

Here's another audio piece for you, a kinky fairytale with a twist in the tail. It's by Jim, the writer who penned Towards Forgiveness and Halloween Switchery, and has kindly given me permission to share our collaborations on my blog. This is a bit longer than the other audio pieces I've posted so far and I think it's rather fun. Hope you like it.

Both Cheeks (10:06)
(Click to play or download)

That Bored to Death scene

Everyone and their dog has probably seen this already, but just in case you missed it on Chross' blog, here's the recent scene from HBO's "Bored to Death" which is being hailed as the most authentic spanking ever aired on mainstream TV:



According to the TV universe, spanking is still only acceptable if it's presented as comedy, but the comedy scenes are certainly getting kinkier! This scene isn't particularly believable, but it's not unsympathetic, either. I think you're meant to enjoy Nina's enthusiasm, despite her weird timing and laughable inconsistencies. Extra props for mention of safewords, the focus on the spankee's desires and Jonathan responding as if this happened to him every day.

Zille caned in jodhpurs

Another taster from my forthcoming site. Zille Defeu has been hard at work editing photos from the shoot I did with her a year ago (almost exactly, in fact), and she's just posted this image on her blog:



Thanks to her partner Malc for the amazing photo.

Zille is currently in the running for this year's New Spankee award at the Spanking Spot, although she's not a new spankee - she's been running BDSM and fetish porn sites for years as a producer and photographer, and is only new to the niche world of pure spanking sites. Speaking as a producer/director myself, I can tell you that she's an absolute star to work with - totally professional, very talented and a complete sweetheart. Please do vote for her - she's one of the pioneers of queer and female-gaze porn, a total hottie and a gorgeous person to boot, and it would be great to give her credit where it's due.

Little Crackers

While I'm on the topic of M/m canings, Eliane posted an extremely tasty clip on twitter today. This is from a film coming out this Christmas starring Stephen Fry, which appears to be autobiographical in theme.

1969 - Christmas Term and twelve year-old Stephen Fry isn’t popular with his headmaster; his sweet tooth, extensive vocabulary and sharp wit regularly earn him six of the best. Unhappy with the pitiful offerings of the tuck shop, Fry Secundus, as he’s known, often ventures out of bounds to the village sweet shop. But when one trip to the confectioners too many catches up with young Stephen, and the headmaster threatens to exclude him from the Christmas festivities, Fry’s only hope lies with Bunce, the frightened new boy he’s taken under his wing.

If that wasn't enough of an appetising setup, add this into the mix: the headmaster in question is played by Mr Fry himself, and the film appears to show him giving a stiff three of the best to his 12 year old self. Don't believe me? Check out this tantalising clip (sorry - the video isn't available to embed, but your clicking finger will thank you for making the effort.)



"The last boy to whom I administered twelve strokes of the cane is buried under that apple tree. Be advised. Now, bend over."

I am pleasantly shuddering with anticipation.

The magician's (other) apprentice

I've just received the images from one of the most exciting photostories we shot at the last stills shoot for my new site, with new photographer Daniel.

I knew that one of Adele Haze's favourite fantasies was a "magician's apprentice" scenario. We decided to shoot a set based on a story she was writing, in which the young male apprentice of a magician brings a wench home, with unexpected consequences. I wasn't modelling for this one, which left me free to direct - handy given the complexities of the narrative. It's a good 'un, though.

Our story begins with ceremonial magician Mr Sheridan, played by Thomas Cameron.



One night while out on the town, his young apprentice Giles (Jimmy Holloway) meets a girl called Sophie (Adele Haze). To impress her, he brings her back to his master's workshop.



Sophie is delighted, and soon she and Giles are engaged in some enthusiastic snogging in Mr Sheridan's chair. But as their kissing increases in passion, something very strange happens - all the candles in the room spontaneously burst into flame.

     

A moment later Mr Sheridan thunders in to investigate the cause of the magical flare which interrupted his very important working upstairs. He is not impressed to discover a strange woman in his secret workshop.

     

It was a real treat being able to bring Adele's fantasy to life - made even better by the fact that I persuaded Tom and Jimmy to do a rare M/m scene. They're such close friends in real life that it's not something they're usually comfortable doing, but they agreed to a formal, masculine six of the best for the sake of this scene. Much to the delight of me and Adele. She was enjoying herself so much that I had to crop her out of some of the photos due to her out-of-character lascivious grin - and she's posted some more photos of the caning on her own blog.

     

These are two of my very favourite boys, and I'm so thrilled that they had the guts to enact this scene to please us girls. Enjoy, ladies - it may not happen again, but I'm very happy I got to see it once at least!

This photostory, complete with an original fiction piece by Adele herself, will be available for download on my new site when it goes live sometime in the new year. But I'll post a sample from the second half before then. Jimmy and Sophie's ordeal isn't over yet - Mr Sheridan intends to get to the bottom of what caused the unexplained magical power surge, and he has a shrewd idea of where to look...

We who would virtuous be / leave smut behind us

Perhaps unsurprisingly when your starting point is a group of adult women indulging in erotic roleplay, sexual misdemeanours became a bit of a theme during the Finishing School weekend.

Of course, our tutors Mrs Darling and Miss Hammond-Grant wholly disapproved of any crudeness or wanton behaviour. Those of you who read Amy Hunter's blog will already have been treated to the Darling's Academy anthem, in which smut (and its dangers) takes centre stage. The words of our beloved anthem were strangely prophetic. It's almost as if our tops expected modesty to be the thing we would struggle with most.

Twice during the weekend, Leia-Ann Woods earned herself a vicious tawsing for not wearing appropriate underwear. (I cringed a little as Miss Hammond-Grant tawsed her hands for not wearing a bra during class, as I never wear the things, but since I didn't fancy a hand tawsing, I thought it would be foolish to own up.) Several girls were punished for having illicit liaisons with 'bachelors' - and indeed other girls, despite Leia-Ann's protestations in Sunday assembly that the lovebite on her neck was the work of an unseasonal fruitbat.

My first punishment of the weekend, in fact, during Saturday morning assembly, was for making inappropriately sexual conversation during the drive to the castle the night before. Amelie Hammond-Grant targeted Violet Kynaston (as played by Adele Haze) first. "Could you explain, please, exactly what you mean by shagging, Violet?"

Titters from the girls. Violet kept her cool. "Um, it's when you get a very hairy dog, miss, and you have to shave it so it's less shaggy..."

Nor had our polyamorous gossip escaped their notice:

"Two boyfriends, Violet? Why would one possibly need two?"

"Well, Mrs Darling, it's useful to have a backup in case one of them is indisposed."

I hadn't got away with it either. I was informed that talking openly about sex, especially with multiple partners, is quite unladylike, and mention of same-sex encounters was quite disgusting (a fiction I am perfectly happy to indulge when both my tops have been known to partake of girly fun themselves!). Amy Hunter played the outraged teacher to perfection. "What do you have to say for yourself, Miss Blake?"

"Oh," I quipped, shamelessly stealing one of Adele's lines from the bus journey, "I must have come over queer..."

I was rewarded for my uncharacteristic cheek with giggles from my classmates. Somehow keeping a straight face, Mrs Darling asked me to step forward for my first whacking of the weekend - six with the tawse, over my (uniquely sensible) knickers.



Finishing School included some hilarious, imaginative pranks from my classmates which not only earned them well-deserved punishments, but provided excellent entertainment for everyone else. My personal favourite was the conspiracy to serve chocolate willies instead of after-dinner mints on Saturday night, which earned Caoilfhionn and Head Girl Catherine Thomas a blistering double caning each that was astonishing to watch. I particularly enjoyed Caoilfhionn's response when Mrs Darling asked if she was responsible for this outrage: "Responsible is a very interesting choice of word, Mrs Darling..."

Afterwards, though, as various miscreants were punished for a sequence of creative misdemeanours (nothing, it seems, escaped Mrs Darling's attention), I started to feel a bit left out. I'd been surrounded by CP all weekend, but received very little of it. I hadn't planned any outrageous pranks in advance. I'd tried my best to do well in my lessons. In-role eagerness to please clashes badly with an out-of-role desire to see some action.

I turned to Zille, who was watching the canings with a similar envy in her eyes. "Bad girls get all the fun," I whispered, and she vehemently agreed.

We looked at each other.

"Maybe we should be bad."

Thus a plan was born.¹ We'd intended to steal some alone time either way, but had left open the question of whether we wanted to be caught at it. Suddenly the idea of being interrupted mid-coitus behind the curtain seemed like the best of both worlds. But as we edged discreetly over to the tea table in hopes of engineering such a scene, we were waylaid by her 'guardian', Lord Buchanan-Defeu, who had picked up on our need for mistreatment and was attempting to make it happen in his own way. Frustrating as it was to be hindered from executing the Curtain Plan, he did manage to get us into trouble first.

I can't remember whether it was Zillah or her guardian who first started fussing with his bowtie. Did he ask us to neaten it or did we take the liberty ourselves? However it happened, before we knew it his bowtie, far from being tidied, was hanging loose around his neck. "It's alright," we told him, "loosened bowties are the fashion after a certain point in the evening."

Apparently our claims that he looked 'cool' didn't cut it. The next thing we knew, Miss Hammond-Grant was marching over. "Lord Buchanan-Defeu tells me you have been taking liberties with his dress!" she cried. "Am I to understand you have been touching him in an over-familiar manner?"

Our protestations fell on deaf ears. Lord Buchanan-Defeu nobly opted to help Miss Hammond-Grant correct her wayward charges, and thus it was that I found myself over the Deputy Head's lap while Zillah was dealt with by her guardian. It was the first over-the-knee spanking I'd received that weekend, and I found it very hard to conceal my delight. Everyone watched as Miss Hammond-Grant raised my ballgown and spanked me hard over my panties. Yes, my body was singing, finally, yes. I know I was supposed to be in the role of an embarrassed and petulant pupil, but I was jubilant. It was just what I needed. Amy Hunter spanks hard - it was actually the first time I'd ever bottomed to her, and it was lovely to engage with her on that level after watching her get her domme on over the last couple of years.

After that I took a turn over Lord Buchanan-Defeu's knee, which struck me as rather more familiar than merely adjusting a bowtie, but I was hardly going to argue at that point.

I'm sure Zillah and I were supposed to be chastened and sorry after our punishments, but I'm afraid to say they merely encouraged us. Happy and pleasantly buzzing with endorphins, we giggled on the sofa as we watched the party unfold around us. I was more than a little tipsy by this stage - I'd been so run down with cold over the previous few days that I'd nearly had to leave lessons earlier that afternoon, but somewhere during this evening, aided by champagne and the excitement of the experience, my energy had flipped into a slightly manic euphoria which I knew I'd probably pay for later.

Cuddling up to Zille, we revisited our plan. As Leia-Ann earned herself yet another public punishment (I didn't even hear what it was for this time) I whispered to Zille that we could probably get away with a quick snog while everyone else was distracted watching Leia-Ann. A quick snog, of course, turned into an enthusiastic makeout session, which lasted glorious minutes before a shout from Mrs Darling cut across the room like a knife.

We were in it. Caught red-handed. Despite having willingly leapt into trouble, when I stood up and faced the wrath of the Head and Deputy Head of the Academy my heart began to pound and I wondered if this had been wise. The heat of their scolding was like an onslaught, and I felt my face redden as we were told how much we'd disgraced Mrs Darling in front of her guests.

Zille and I were instructed to stand facing the tea table and bend over with our hands on it. To lift our evening gowns and pull down our panties. This would be a double caning, and it would be on the bare. I would receive my strokes first.

The caning itself is a blur. Mrs Darling and Miss Hammond-Grant arranged themselves either side of me and pulled no punches. It was hard - hard enough to make me clench my hands and gasp, although I didn't feel like I was making much sound compared to the buzz of the gathering behind me. I can't even remember how many strokes I got - I wasn't asked to count - 12 or 18, I think; but all I remember is a haze of sensation, intense, delicious, exhilarating. I devoured every moment. Perhaps I shouldn't admit to this where my tops can read it, but for me the experience translated as pure pleasure. I was flying so high that every searing stroke seemed to pour energy straight into my spinal cord.

I was left with a sequence of delicious welts which hardened to scabs over the next few days, proof that my memory of those slicing, burning strokes is not exaggerated. The marks are still there.

--

The next day, I felt a bit nervous about the fact that the only mischief I could manage was sexual in nature. Compared to the pre-planned pranks and exuberant naughtiness going on around me, it hardly felt imaginative. In our room, Adele remarked that she was glad I'd managed to land myself in trouble in a way that felt comfortable and natural for me, and that the incident with Zille had been "in character". I suppose, since I wasn't really playing a character, that this is true; but I couldn't shake the feeling that playing a different role next time and coming up with something a bit less predictable would have been more entertaining.

It wasn't until I re-read the lyrics of the Darling's Academy anthem a few days later that I realised the extent to which they focussed on sexual misbehaviour. Sluttiness, it seems, is one of the worst crimes the Academy can imagine:

We who would virtuous be
Leave smut behind us
Hereby learn decency
With sore reminders.
To Darling’s we are sent
Our tawdriness repent
It is our one intent
To be a lady.

Out of character, I'm proud of my 'tawdriness' - I don't see anything wrong with it and I know Lucy and Amy don't either. It's certainly an aspect of myself which I'm disinclined to curb even when I'm trying to be behave, and it's a type of wrongdoing I'm perfectly comfortable with. So I'm reassured that, rather than 'cheating' the system by not behaving in-role, my misdeeds were perfectly in tune with the script.

Clearly, when it comes to smut, my protestations of being 'good' are less accurate than I thought. In this area at least, I fear I may be a hopeless case.

1. While Zille and I were plotting, I did manage to earn myself six of the best with the aid of Leia-Ann, but I'll tell you that story later. Far from satisfying my appetite for punishment, it merely left me wanting more.

Playing the game

One of the problems with being a good submissive at a kinky roleplay event is that well-behaved characters don't get punished, and can end up feeling a bit left out. (The exception is if the tops know you well enough to pick on you unfairly. Leia-Ann Woods would probably argue that this situation is not desirable at all, but I did find myself envying her, strange as it seems - I'd have found being singled out much easier!)

In private D/s scenes and social contexts like play parties and clubs, deliberately bratting, being disobedient or causing mischief in order to earn a punishment has always made me feel uncomfortable. I can't get over the idea that I'm being horribly self-involved, rude, demanding and attention-seeking. More generally, I've never really liked being made to feel "naughty" when I'm being punished. I much prefer to please my partners - and if I please them by being punished, so much the better!

But in a social roleplay like the Finishing School weekend, what's the best approach for a good girl who likes to play hard? Should I only roleplay with tops I can trust to set me impossible tasks, single me out unfairly, pick up on every little misdemeanour, deliberate or accidental? Not easy to achieve unless I only roleplay with my partners - and if every bottom in a scene needed such treatment, the tops would have their work cut out!

The first public punishments of the weekend were meted out at the Saturday morning assembly. Emma-Jane had organised matching Little Miss Trouble panties for everyone to wear instead of our regulation knickers. She'd made sure a pair was provided for me, but I agonised stupid amounts over whether to participate or not. I really wasn't comfortable playing a bratty persona and deliberately earning punishments. It's just not my style. But I didn't want to seem like some snotty goody-goody thinking she was better than everyone else, either. I'm more susceptible to peer pressure than I'd like!

In the end I decided that it was foolish to pressure myself to do something I wasn't comfortable with, and wore regulation knickers. I was in on the joke, but when Mrs Darling and Miss Hammond-Grant whacked their way down the line of naughty bottoms, mine was passed over (apart from a couple of over-enthusiastic, accidental swats from Miss H-G on her way past the first time, which was more funny than anything else!)

I think it was the right decision. I wasn't excluded from a big scene, and the teachers didn't go on about my abstention to the extent I felt embarrassed about it. But interestingly, as we stood there in assembly, skirts lifted to show Mrs Darling who had participated and who had not, I realised that despite my misgivings I probably would have felt comfortable if I'd joined in, after all. Okay, it would have felt a bit artificial, but it was no big deal and all in good fun. Next time, perhaps, I'll have the confidence to join in for the sake of the joke. After all, if my character doesn't misbehave somehow, my real kinky self won't have much fun.

I've already decided that at future roleplay events like this I definitely want to take a character, with a different name and backstory (I have a few ideas already...), to make it easier for me to indulge in this sort of play without guilt.

Being good out of character is great. (Being responsible and helpful, being nice to people, pulling your weight with chores, not being selfish or annoying). But my character and me have different aims. I like playing hard and want to be included in the kinky fun. My character, however, wants to avoid getting into trouble. Both of us want to please our tutors and get on with my classmates. But is being good in character necessary to be a good play partner?

The only kind of scene I've played for fun before involved crimes committed offstage, or unfair scenarios with sadistic tops taking advantage. An educational setting with fair, likeable teachers is very different. It's unfair to expect two tops to take responsibility for satisfying a whole group of kinky girls without any input from them - it's reasonable that we should help them along by giving them something to work with. Really, if you think about it, misbehaving is the right thing to do in this sort of context!

Outright bratting may not be my style, but creative mischief to amuse my classmates and enliven a group roleplay feels less self-involved - it enhances the experience for all. My teachers' characters won't approve, of course, but the real tops trying to pull together an entertaining and satisfying group scene will appreciate imaginative contributions (and are almost certainly finding it as funny as us). The consequences are an out-of-character reward as much as an in-character punishment. I favour active rather passive submission, and I think this sort of "misbehaviour" is the equivalent in certain types of roleplay.

One rule Adele Haze mentioned at the weekend which several classmates agreed with was, "don't commit the crime (in character) if you can't take the punishment". But I think it works the other way, too - if you want the punishment, you have to earn it somehow! Part of being a grownup, after all, is self-reliance - it's not fair to expect other people to do all the work for me.

There's a difference, of course, between the sort of imaginative, entertaining mischief which enlivens a scene, or cheeky retorts witty enough to make people laugh, and being genuinely annoying or aggravating. This line might be obvious to hardcore purveyors of mischief, but I'm just trying to puzzle it out - helped by following the good examples of my fellow Finishing School students.

Here's what I've got so far: think of this as Finishing School Etiquette (the unofficial version)...

• Mischief and cheekiness are all very well, but unkindness and snideness are rarely justified. Creativeness and generosity of spirit aren't incompatible with rule-breaking!
• Targets should be chosen with care - mean characters are fairer game than nice ones, and of course one should show solidarity with one's fellow students! Other people "playing the game" are better targets than those trying to be good.
• Disobedience should be frivolous and entertaining for onlookers - attention-seeking behaviour is more justifiable if you put on a good show and raise a laugh.
• "Naughtiness" shouldn't be an excuse to get out of chores or unpleasant duties, especially if this makes more work for your fellows. Same goes for bothering people while they're doing something difficult, unpleasant or necessary.
• Just as tops can be expected to look after our limits, we should look after theirs. It's better to ease off when they're particularly tired of dealing with naughty pupils rather than demanding more attention from them.

What do you think? Is that a reasonable approximation of "bratting etiquette"? Are there any I've missed?

I think all my fellow players last weekend had an instinctive grasp of these rules. As well the teachers showing us how to be more ladylike, the other Finishing School pupils offered a masterclass in responsible naughtiness. Watching so much entertaining cheekiness and mischief has left me feeling much more confident that I could enjoy breaking the written rules, once I've got a better sense of what the unwritten ones are.

I've realised that so much of effective naughtiness is about confidence. Answering back is impossible if you're too tongue-tied to think of witty retorts. It's easier to cause trouble if you can trust that your play partners will enjoy the consequences. One of the reasons I default to obedience is if I feel shy or insecure and don't want to call attention to myself. I'm worried about seeming like one of those demanding, pushy bottoms constantly competing for attention. But this weekend offered a crash course in creative ways of getting into trouble that are fun for all involved, and by the end I was feeling more confident that I could join in without making a genuine nuisance of myself. Now I just need more practice - clearly, I'm just going to have to do more roleplay!

I'm not sure what Mrs Darling and Miss Hammond-Grant will make of the non-curricular things I learned this weekend. I'm sure Finishing School was intended to make me better behaved, not worse...

The first night at Mrs Darling's Academy

On the way to Scotland on Friday, the new intake for Mrs Darling's Academy kept closely in touch via Twitter. It wasn't until Leia-Ann posted a message worrying that we'd be punished for traveling in jeans that it occurred to me that we might not be supposed to. We'd been told to bring smart, sensible and ladylike clothes, and it was made clear that jeans and trainers were expressly forbidden at the academy itself, but surely the rules would only apply once we arrived? The others, mostly traveling in warm and comfortable clothing like me, agreed. At least if we were going to get into trouble for wearing jeans when we arrived, I wouldn't be alone.

I wasn't as shocked as some of the others when we were met at the airport by an intimidating Miss Hammond-Grant rather than the friendly Amy Hunter we'd been led to expect. She put us straight into character, and I was happy to go along with it (although not entirely sure how to respond, since I wasn't really going as a character). Not only was there an actual school bus waiting for us, but the driver was in on it as well. The first thing that happened was our phones were confiscated, so there was nothing to do on the hour long drive to the unknown but talk.

Our chatting and joking had an edge of nervousness which I think made us a bit more manic. Discussion ranged from ferrets up trousers to normal, out-of-character gossip. Whenever Miss Hammond-Grant interjected with a reprimand about the inappropriate nature of our conversation I lapsed into silence, unsure how to respond. We giggled together in girlish solidarity, but I think I wasn't the only one to feel a bit nervous and uncertain. Was I meant to be conversing in character? What would that involve, anyway? And perhaps most importantly, would we all (except Catherine Thomas, impeccably dressed in a smart skirt and jumper) be in trouble on arrival for our comfy, unladylike attire?

My feelings about the prospect were mixed. Half of me was cross and indignant at the idea that we might be punished for breaking an unannounced rule, although given we hadn't been told we'd be put straight into role and immediately cut off from the outside world, it didn't seem impossible. And yet - I wasn't likely to get into trouble deliberately, so if I wanted to play I'd need my tutors to be mean. Wasn't this exactly the kind of unfair punishment I preferred?

It was an emotional tension that would characterise my experience of the weekend, as I slowly assimilated the realities of social CP roleplay, and its many differences from private, romantic D/s. My natural earnestness and obedience ceased to be an advantage as the naughtiest girls got to play the most, leaving me feeling excluded from the fun at times. But I never quite felt at home deliberately acting out, which tends to make me feel uncomfortable and attention-seeking. Trying to resolve my eagerness to please with my desire to be punished was a steep learning curve, and I think my real kinky self got as much out of Mrs Darling's Academy as nervous new girl Miss Blake did from her finishing school lessons.

In the end, we were only lectured for arriving in jeans. After the nervousness of the bus journey, we were treated to our first sight of the castle we'd be staying at for the weekend - the most luxuriously appointed roleplay venue I've ever heard of, which really enhanced the experience (even if it was painfully cold). Piling out of the bus with our scarves and suitcases, looking in awe at the snow-covered turrets of our new home, being greeted by the glamorous Mrs Darling and read the academy rules in the luscious oak-paneled drawing room - it was a treat for the mind and senses. I'd amused myself on the train north with the similarities between this and going to Hogwarts, and it was no less magical. Immersion in role was effortless as we were given a tour of the castle and shown to our dormitory rooms.

In fact, no-one was punished on that first night (except Leia-Ann Woods for smoking, but we only heard that story afterwards). Lucy and Amy decided not to push us too hard at first, given the intensity of our arrival experience, and especially since so many of my classmates were meeting them for the first time. They dropped out of role briefly during dinner, and the ease with which they switched in and out of character made the whole thing feel more natural for me. Our first lecture that evening on grooming and presentation felt very informal, almost not in role at all, except in the real sense in which my glamorous friends were sharing their expertise with us, and we genuinely wanted to learn. For all our tiredness (and I don't think any of the girls were tireder than our tutors) it was an interesting and informative lecture, and really helped my headspace. I didn't need to put on a role in this context; they actually knew more than me about these things, and I could accept their authority without any need for pretense.

--

I have huge amounts to say about the rest of the weekend, and I'll do my best to share as much as possible with you (it'll take several posts, I think, although I'm still wondering how to split it up into manageable chunks). For now, I'll leave you with some links to other posts from my fellow finishing school girls:

Adele/Haron: Finished off - or, To be a lady
Emma-Jane: To Darling's we are sent
Eliane: Eliane at Finishing School
Leia-Ann: Finishing School Part 1

Off to Finishing School

I'm on a train moving north through snow-covered fields, and when I think about where I'm going my stomach tightens in anticipation. My suitcase, as well as warm clothes and wellies for a few days in the Highlands next week, contains carefully-assembled items, ticked off the list I was sent earlier this week: smart daywear, white blouse, stockings, ladylike underwear, sensible shoes, high heels, evening gown and demure cocktail dress. I'm going to school, but it won't be like any school I've been to before.

This afternoon myself and a handful of others in need of "finishing" will enrol in Mrs Darling's prestigious academy for errant young ladies. The curious can discover more about this institution through the characterful Twitter accounts maintained by Mrs Darling herself (AKA Northern Spanking's Lucy McLean) and her capable deputy Miss Amelie Hammond-Grant (AKA Amy Hunter).

This will be my first foray into the world of immersive social roleplay, and I feel as if I'm jumping into the deep end. A dozen pupils, four tutors and half a dozen unknown "bachelors" whose role in all this is yet to be discovered. Two whole nights and days sleeping, waking and eating in character. I've only played short, small-scale roleplay scenes three or four times before.

My anxiety over the past couple of weeks has been off the scale. There's the practical concerns: Will I forget to bring anything? Will my health be up to it? (I've had a cold most of this week, but have had too much work to do before going away to be able to rest and recuperate.) How will I, a grown woman who prefers to manage her own schedule, cope with being told when to sleep, when and what to eat and drink? Will we be allowed tea and coffee? (I won't have much fun with caffeine withdrawal headaches all weekend.) Will the unfamiliar constraints be enjoyable, or will I just find the loss of independence annoying?

Then there's the whole reason, I guess, that most of us are there - the CP. My instinct, as a first timer, is to stay out of trouble as much as possible, observe until I feel comfortable participating. Will I have the opportunity, or will our tutors ensure that all of us are dealt with as a matter of course? Normally I strongly prefer unfair punishments to deliberately earning one through misbehaviour; will that be true this time, or will I want to reclaim some control over my fate? If everyone else embarks on a collective prank, do I suffer the embarrassment of being the goody-goody odd one out, or risk earning a punishment before I feel ready?

I wrote on my application form that I had no experience of hand tawsing, and if it were to happen it would be an extreme and intense experience not to be undertaken lightly. But in retrospect, I started to regret not putting it as a hard limit. What sort of behaviour would count as "extreme" in the rules of this unknown academy? The more I thought about it, the more it seemed that I'd set myself up. If I wanted to, say, steal intimate time with any of my attractive fellow students (including close friends I rarely get to see), I could probably expect the worst. With a disappointed sigh and a hard look at my comfort zone, I've decided it's not worth the risk. I'm resigned to being good - or at any rate, as good as possible.

Then there's the theme of the school itself. This isn't the comforting familiarity of a traditional school - it's an aristocratic finishing school for young adults, set in the modern world. Wearing stockings to class, smartphones not permitted outside the dormitory - it's a dizzying mix of old and new, and the unfamiliarity of it is scary and exhilarating.

I decided to apply as myself, Pandora, rather than a character, figuring that it would be easier to cope with assimilating so many news experiences without the added complication of presenting a new persona. My application was filled out with total honesty. Thanks to a privileged education I am, in traditional terms, relatively accomplished, and so the areas in which I need "finishing" are those relating to elegance, etiquette and social graces, the trimmings of class which few real people are trained in these days. Sounds like fun, I thought, and with luck I'll genuinely learn something. But as the event loomed closer I found things to fret about. What about posture and deportment? Would the tutors accept my real-life back problems as a valid excuse for imperfection? Would I be able to deal with a critique of my way of speaking and moving, or would it all be far too personal for comfort? Suddenly I began to regret not having a character to hide behind.

But I'm on my way, now, reassuring myself with the same things I've told myself all along. This is a fun event run my friends, who know my limits and aren't out to get me. I'm hardly going to be on my own, and once I'm there I bet I'll be disappointed if I don't get into trouble at least once.

It's weird, but right now my good girl kink and my eagerness to please feel like my own worst enemy. I may not be very submissive to most people on the planet - which is not proving helpful in accepting the loss of control for two days of my life - but my anxious perfectionism is rehearsing every possible way in which things might not go to plan.

Ultimately, of course, I don't know the plan - and I'm going to have to submit to the authority of the lovely, generous ladies running this weekend if I don't want to spend it champing at the bit. My difficulty in submitting to anyone other than my partners is why I've so rarely indulged in these group roleplay scenes in the past, and if I'm going to enjoy this one, I'm going to have to get over it enough to trust the tutors with my boundaries and person.

As the train crosses through blizzards into snowy Scotland, my anxieties slowly peel away along with the world I'm leaving behind. Underneath them is excitement and the happy anticipation of seeing friends old and new. Deep down I know that all my fears are daft, and I'm going to have the time of my life. Dressing up, shared world creation, watching others be punished - in many ways this experience is a dream come true.

I'm looking forward to getting so immersed in it that I forget my uncertainties. See you on the flipside.

Love Me Like You Hate Me

Lust Films have an exciting new short film in the pipeline. Erika Lust is a pioneer of feminist and female-gaze pornography, but none of her early work was quite edgy enough to tick my boxes. Her 2009 short Handcuffs ticked many of my boxes, however, and to my delight she continues to explore kink themes in her 2010 film Love Me Like You Hate Me. Here's the trailer:


TEASER LOVE ME LIKE YOU HATE ME
Uploaded by lustfilms.

[Love Me Like You Hate Me] provides a modern perspective on a variety of practices that may be considered taboo for many women: to be tied up oneself or to tie someone else up, role-play and dressing up, giving pain or receiving it, being a strict dominatrix or being a submissive slave, punishing our partner or being punished by them... explore with Venus O'Hara and Erika Lust the seductive thrills of domination or the fear and excitement of submission.

Lust Films are beautiful, stylish and elegant with production values most spanking studios can only dream of. As a feminist pornographer, Erika Lust is one of my political rolemodels. I'm ridiculously excited that she's turned her talents to fetish; it's so rare to see the combination of progressive ethics, visually rich aesthetics and the female gaze with the sort of edgy fantasy that turns me on.

Discovering to my delight that both Handcuffs and Love Me Like You Hate Me are included as extras on Lust Film's newest DVD, Life Love Lust, I bought it like a shot. If this looks like your kind of thing, I'd strongly encourage you to do the same. I'm not making any money off this one; the world needs more imaginative, progressive pornographers like Lust Films and it's up to us to support them if we want them to continue. (Plus, if her fetish themed films are a huge success it'll encourage her to make more, which can only be a good thing). I'm really excited about my purchase, and can't wait for it to arrive. I'll be sure to write a full review once I've watched it!

Miss

This weekend I had the not inconsiderable pleasure of March Middleton's company. We enjoyed a stimulating evening together, during which March developed a liking for Tom's vicious little pocket-tawse, and demonstrated her ability to spank really quite hard when she knows she can get away with it. There was a lot of giggling (I do like sleeping with people who are inclined towards laughter during sex) and once my bottom was pink and tingling, we turned our attention to other pursuits which were just as satisfying.

The prefect/schoolgirl dynamic from the story she wrote me (now completed - and I not only have permission to include it in the members area of my site, but she's mulling over the possibility of appearing with me in an accompanying photoset...) persisted. At one point, as we sat facing each other crosslegged on the bed, winding down some conversational thread or other, March quipped, "Well, what should we tuck into first, the sardines or the fruitcake?" If I hadn't wanted to film a school dorm midnight feast scene before, I do now.

A couple of hours previously, by way of settling down to things, she showed me the "rude book" which was the star of her story: Miss, the 1912 (I think) novel by "Sadie Blackeyes" (otherwise known as the French author Pierre Dumarchey). I haven't read it, but skimming through it assured me that I wanted to; if anyone wants to buy me a Christmas present, the hardcover edition would be lovely. Mostly, though, I was distracted by the pictures - selected illustrations from various editions, many of which were beautiful, compelling and hot. I wanted to borrow it the next day to scan a couple of them in to show you, but we didn't get a chance; it'll just have to wait until I possess a copy of my own.

I'll leave you with another snippet from the story which kicked it all off, by March herself:

March's aim seemed devilishly accurate. The arc of the brush finished, again and again, on exactly the same spot. The hollow sound of the impact was startlingly loud in the quiet house.

“Twelve, March!” Pandora muttered, teeth gritted. If only she hadn't been such a fool as to move this might have been the last stroke. But there were two more to come and March seemed to be hitting harder every time. Why had she agreed to this?

March brought the brush down again, putting greater force into the stroke and matching the impact exactly to the red rectangle on Pandora's left buttock - a companion imprint graced the right-hand cheek. “Thirteen, March!”, she heard, in something that was almost a wail. The last stroke, then; March raised the brush and slammed it as hard as she could into the trembling girl's right buttock.

“Fourteen, March!” cried Pandora, and burst into tears.

The law and policy of sex work: II

Continuing my discussion of the recent trend of sensible thinking regarding UK sex work legislation, it would be remiss not to mention the Westminster Skeptics talk on the subject by Dr Belinda Brooks-Gordon, with a reply by Dr Brooke Magnanti (AKA Belle de Jour). While prohibitionism still dominates the mainstream, it's pleasing to see researchers like Dr Brooks-Gordon given an audience at city debates. Her contribution can only aid the cause of those who wish to see a less ideological and more evidence-based approach to sex work legislation.

The talk was organised by blogger-turned-journalist David Allen Green, who recently wrote an article for the New Statesman arguing that our domestic laws regarding sex work are a mess, and putting a case for decriminalisation. I was heartened to see this argument presented by a male lawyer in a mainstream paper (albeit a left-leaning one). It does no harm to advocates of sex worker rights to have more privileged allies championing our cause - there are many who will take arguments presented by white, male, well-paid, City-bred writers far more seriously. It's generally useful to have the face of patriarchal respectability on side.

I missed the talk itself (one of the downsides of no longer being a London resident), but watched the twitter hashtag collect comments with interest. It was affirming to see the responses of audience members whose pre-conceptions of sex work were being challenged:

@taniaglyde Bungling inflation of trafficking figures. From tens to 100k! #westskep

@dnotice Govt position on Prostitution = War on Drugs. Simplistic; assumes criminal laws are correct & we just need to try harder to "win" #westskep

@zoeimogen Apparently the police have a *financial* interest in prosecuting sex work - they get to keep proceeds. How wrong is that? #westskep

@taniaglyde Fundamental human right of freedom of association is denied to sex workers. #westskep

Thanks to the powers of modern technology, my curiosity about what had been said was assuaged a few days later when a podcast of the event was posted online. The sound quality is a bit flaky, but it's well worth a listen. For the benefit of those who don't get the opportunity, and to put some legislative facts in a form that search engines can read, here are some key snippets from Dr Brooks-Gordon's overview of the current law and policy controlling sex work:

• The current best guess of number of sex workers active in the UK is 48 393 (contrast with the 80 000 statistic you often see quoted by govt). Even if you believe sex work to be a social "problem", it's less of one than is claimed by legislators.
• Current legislation includes controlling offences such as "Manage/Assist management of a brothel" brought in under the 2005 Amendment to the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, for which the penalty is a fine or 7 years prison, and which criminalises workers operating under the same roof for safety's sake.
• The offence "Causing, inciting or controlling prostitution for gain" (sections 52-54 of the Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation Sex Offences Act 2003) similarly threatens agents, administrators and employers who are as likely to be protecting sex workers as harming them, and carries a penalty of a fine or 7 years prison. The wording includes anyone who helps a sex worker find work in exchange for financial or emotional reward or goodwill.
• Sections 57-59 of the same Act cover "arranging or facilitating travel" into, within or out of the UK and carries a fine or up to 14 years prison. This permits a ridiculously broad definition of "trafficking" which includes giving a sex worker a lift, and it's not uncommon for agency workers to rely on trusted chaffeurs to drive them to clients' houses and wait outside as security. Dr Brooks-Gordon argues that "Trafficking definitions need to align with the Palermo protocol so that the 'three Fs' of fear, force or fraud are incorporated into legislation. Sex workers have also campaigned for 'control' to be tightened up so the innocent maids and receptionists are not falsely imprisoned."
• The Policing and Crime Act 2009 (commenced in 2010) includes Premises Closure Orders, which permit police to close down premises on suspicion of prostitution taking place now, in the past or in the future. On the basis of speculation about future acts, police are thereby empowered to evict a sex-worker from their home and confiscate their savings, with no legal recourse.
• The Policing and Crime Act also includes the well-intentioned but highly unrealistic Engagement and Support Orders. Following police intervention, these prescribe three meetings between a sex worker and a supervisor to 'educate' them out of sex work. If after these three meetings the person exhibits no change or evidence of exiting sex work, they go back to court and are fed back into the criminal justice system at the expense of the state. This strategy completely ignores the varied context which might make sex work the best choice for that person. Even if the worker is highly vulnerable and does not have much opportunity for self-determination, this is hardly a viable structure for giving them the help they need to turn their life around. Vulnerable people who turn to sex work because their lives are in chaos require professional care, not a cursory "re-education". And sex workers who are content with their choice deserve the chance to live their life free from state intervention.
• Pamphlets and posters distributed by police - intended to alert potential clients to the possibility that the sex worker they are visiting might be coerced or trafficked - have similarly broad, ambiguous wording. The slogan "walk in a punter, walk out a rapist" implies that no consensual commercial sex relationship is possible between sex worker and client. The myths propounded about trafficking (particularly in government-funded reports) make this implication particularly strongly if the worker in question is migrant.
• Dr Brooks-Gordon said that "the law is replete with flawed and inadequate reports". For example, an original estimate of 4 000 trafficked sex workers in London (arising from the debunked Poppy Project estimation that 80% of sex workers who are foreign nationals are trafficked) was inflated further in a Home Office internal document; which was then further "rounded up" by some journalists to 25 000 or 100 000. Laura Agustin has some good analysis of this, and you may be familiar with the Guardian report on how trafficking figures were exaggerated.
• Actual trafficking figures arising from police activity are far lower. No annual figure of migrant sex slaves found by police in the UK has been higher than 100. Police studies Pentameter 1 and 2 in 2007 and 2008 found 71 and 88 trafficked people respectively - less than 0.02% of the (actual) estimated total number of sex workers operating in the UK.
• As Laura Agustin's research shows, far more common than trafficking are people who migrate to work in the sex trade for a reason. For instance, many migrant sex workers leave their own countries due to police violence. The UK has a minority population of trans or queer sex workers escaping homophobia or transphobia in e.g. Eastern Europe.
• Discussing the type of person who chooses sex work, Dr Brooks-Gordon cites a study which suggests that 48% of off-street sex workers have a nursing, teaching or caring qualification.
• One question often asked: is sex work demand driven, or supply led? (Speaking personally, my own experience is certainly the latter - I set out to explore things I wanted to do, at a deep level of personal fulfilment - creating kinky erotica is the culmination of all my prior experience of kink, performance and creative expression - and discovered to my surprise and pleasure that there was a market for it. My experience is privileged, but not unique.) Dr Brooks-Gorden floated the idea that with increased tuition fees coinciding with recorded higher numbers of students in sex work, government is in fact pushing supply rather than reducing demand.
• Under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, police are entitled to keep 25% of proceeds from brothel raids. The state and its enforcers have a huge vested interest in keeping sex work criminalised.

Heresy Corner has an interesting analysis of the language used by both sides of the debate. The discussion is also worth reading, including contributions from Magnanti and Agustin.

While legislators claim to be acting in the best interests of vulnerable sex workers, the evidence suggests otherwise. Vested interests, inaccurate data, prejudiced reports and broad, ambiguous legislation create a climate in which moralistic rescuers have too much power to intervene and too many distorted reasons for doing so. If we really want to help vulnerable people exit the sex industry, we should be preventing them from entering the criminal justice system, offering integrated, long-term care, and not conflating them with the (far more numerous) independent people who are capable of self-determination, and have made a choice which seems best for them.

The debt collectors

This is definitely filed under "fantasies that wouldn't be hot in real life". I find the whole concept of professional debt collectors kind of dreadful - surely the worst sort of middlemen - but real-life scenarios in which it's plausible that strangers might enter your house and intimidate you are hard to come by. And everyone hates debt collectors, right? So they're the ideal sadistic villains; perfect fantasy fodder if you want anonymous thugs, straightforwardly scary and convincingly ruthless.



Gloriously sinister: the predator waiting patiently for their prey to wake up. By the time you realise they're there, you're already at their mercy.



In my head, of course, this is a CP fantasy. The debt collectors are there not only to bully payment out of you, they're there to punish, to claim their pound of flesh. But it's a rape fantasy too, inevitably. It wouldn't be convincing otherwise. These aren't the firm but fair, restrained disciplinarians of classic punishment tropes - they're baddies, and you can rely on them to be sleazy as well as brutal.



Mind you, any scenario that involves being manhandled by two strong chaps is likely to catch my interest. A bit of breathplay never goes amiss, either.

School days: true memories and unfair punishments

This evening I was brainstorming some scenarios for a new audio piece with one of my correspondents, and in my email I ended up going into more detail than I intended about my preferences and real school experiences. I didn't have time to write a proper blogpost this evening, but thought you might enjoy some notes on my preferred punishment scenarios, and revelations from my school days...



I'm a sucker for the emotional narratives of punishment, but get bored easily with the traditional transition from petulance to remorse. Two friends punished together, each feeling worse about their friend's suffering than their own, and trying to protect each other - always good. I love noble self-sacrifice, and boys or girls voluntarily taking on punishments to protect someone younger or more vulnerable. In fact, I was raised on the sort of virtuous Victorian melodrama in which the protagonist suffers dreadful, unfair misfortunes but manages to retain a sense of adventure regardless, so I love anything centred around unfair punishments. I don't really have a "bad girl" kink, so if someone else has got me into trouble and the authorities believe them over me, that's a perfect way into a punishment scenario without the victim having to lose face.

One of my most horrible days at school was in the second term of my first year, when a group of kids who liked stirring up trouble decided to tell our head of year that I'd been bullying someone. It was completely fabricated, but the teachers hadn't got to know me yet (a few years later it would have been immediately laughed off) and it took most of a day to untangle. I spent the entire time feeling sick to my stomach, heart pounding and palms sweating. Unpleasant to live through; ideal fantasy fodder in retrospect!

One other memory leaps out at me as something I really did at school which might have resulted in a whacking if I'd been at school fifteen years earlier. I had an ongoing feud with a girl in the year above me who hated me with a vicious passion. I have no idea why, except that I wasn't the most popular kid in my year - nerdy and a bit of a misfit. But who knows what I did to get this bully's attention. Anyway, it was your normal taunting - her backed up by a crowd of mates, usually - which I did my best to ignore. One day in my fourth year, I was having a really bad day for various reasons, and whatsherface in the year above had been really getting on my tits lately, always managing to pop up with the same pathetic old jeers at the worst possible moment. I was on my way from the Great Hall to somewhere on the ground floor and her and her mates cornered me on the spiral staircase, trying to get a rise out of me. Something snapped in me. I've never, ever been a violent person, and didn't even really fight back to the sort of subtle catfighting which went on in our first year - pinches and foot-stamping in the press between classes, nothing more overt - but this time I'd just had enough. I turned around and smacked her across the face.

The weird thing is that it worked. She was gasping "the bitch slapped me!" and they were all yelling insults after me, and I was pumped so full of adrenaline I was shaking, but I walked away and after that, she never bothered me again.

If a teacher had witnessed that they'd probably have thought I'd been massively overreacting, and if I'd tried to explain myself they'd have said verbal taunts were no excuse for violence. But they'd have been wrong. It was the best possible thing I could have done, and looking back, I'm proud of myself for having had the guts to do it. If I'd been whacked for it I'd have been angry and upset at the injustice, but it would also have been totally worth it.

I find the idea of a punishment which doesn't outweigh the choice which led to it really appealing. It lends the recipient a degree of strength and self-determination which I find it easy to identify with. I think if I have a "bad girl" fantasy, it's definitely not one that fits into a remorse narrative. If my fantasy self is to be punished for something she's actually done, it's much more interesting for me if she considers it a fair trade-off; if she would make the same choice, and earn her punishment again, given the chance.

Kinky Merit Badge I: Spanking

D has a thing for high heels. It's very specific: he doesn't like worshipping or licking them or anything (so the merit badge, sadly, is not one for us), he just thinks most sexual encounters or scenes are improved by his partner wearing unfeasibly high heels. The smoother, shinier and slinkier the better. Always spike-heeled stilettos, not wedges or sturdy heels, and preferably round rather than pointy toes. I refuse to wear the things in the usual vanilla contexts, but I've developed quite a collection of shoes I can barely walk in which I only wear in bed. And I've caught the fetish - I now associate wearing ridiculously high heels with having fantastic sex, and I've developed a taste for the way they look on other people. So when I'm gearing up to visit him and he tells me to bring some shoes with me, I know we're going to have some fun.

I've been waiting all night for the instruction, and am ready when it comes. We agreed that it would be appropriate to start the collection with the Spanking badge, so I think I can guess what's coming. He busies himself in the bathroom while I undress in the bedroom. I'm still wiggling into the latest favourite pair of strappy heels when he comes back in, which always make me feel self-conscious, but then I've grown to like the imbalanced self-consciousness D's topping style tends to make me feel. It's a sort of humiliation-lite.

We're already feeling connected. When I look into his eyes the love shining from them makes my throat ache. He asks me to kneel, and I notice he's holding my collar. I haven't worn it in a long time - not because we haven't been playing, but just because that sort of formality has never really been D's thing, and it kind of fell off our radar. (Plus, it's kind of hard to give head in it, which has always been a big part of our play.)

"I'm not going to give you your Collared badge tonight," he murmurs, his lips almost brushing my ear as he fastens the collar around my neck. "But I thought you should get used to wearing it again." I can feel love and lust and affection filling me up as if it's being poured into me. I'm still kneeling; he moves to face me, takes my hand and kisses it, and I return the favour, never breaking eye contact.

Then I'm lying facedown on the bed - facing away from the big mirrors that line one wall of his room. He moves behind me and I peek over my shoulder. He's holding his black leather gloves, the soft Italian leather driving gloves I bought him years ago because in my opinion all dominants should own some. He puts them on, slowly. I can't help it - at this sight of those gloves I'm already wet. The incongruity of the dark leather against his bare arms just heightens the effect. I imagine his leather-clad hands on my skin, my nipples, my lips, enclosing my neck; the contrast between the satin-soft leather and his strong grip. I'm so aroused I give an involuntary whimper.

He obliges me with caresses, his hand wrapped around my throat like a warning, brushing against my cheek, my breasts. Then he starts to spank me.

We tried this once before, so I know that the gloves diffuse the sting rather than enhancing it. He's spanking me as hard as he can, though, using all his strength, and each spank thumps against my arse, jolting me forward. The sting is dispersed but the thud is lovely. After a little while I wonder if he realises he's partly wasting his strength, and (respectfully) comment that the leather always hurts less than you might hope. The next thing I feel is the snap of an empty glove against one cheek. Such a mocking little sting, almost no weight behind it; the opposite sensation. A few more smacks like insect bites, and then he starts using his hand. After the extremes of sensation caused by the leather the familar warm sting of his palm is welcome, and I buck to meet each spank.

He turns me round, and onto my back. My arms are tucked above my head. He moves my legs apart, and then further apart. I don't even notice my reflection - I'm completely absorbed in the sensation trip he's sending me on, his wordless power over me. He holds down one leg at a time and slowly, carefully, smacks up the inside of each thigh, hard, from my knee to the damp crease at the top. I bite my lip and yelp at each high-pitched flare of sting.

When he gets to the top my breathing quickens. I know he knows that cunt punishment is off-limits, and I know that he knows that I know, and I trust him not to cross that boundary but I'm still scared. He takes his time. I swallow my panic, try to breathe deeply. He pauses, and then swaps to the other leg. The next painful series of inner-thigh smacks come as a relief. No, of course he won't. He wouldn't. I knew that.

He flips me back over. We're communicating by touch rather than language, and I'm no longer thinking in words. I hang onto the headboard as he spanks my arse with his bare hands, hard and fast. He's really going for it. He straddles my thighs, pinning me down, and spanks harder. The cumulative sting is overwhelming but I'm turned on and warmed up and I'm not scared; the pain is all mixed up with pleasure.

After a while he suddenly stops. He trails his fingers lightly along my heated cheeks. I respond with a wordless sound. His caress dawdles along my bottom crease and I can feel my breath catch and I'm suddenly dizzy. Anal play has been off-limits for annoying health reasons for far too long; I've been desperate for it at the same time as knowing it would be too painful and damaging to contemplate. I still don't feel quite ready, but maybe it would be okay, and then I feel the slick, cool smoothness of a slender buttplug nuzzling between my cheeks, and oh my god, it's slipping in. I'm going mad with lust. I can't think. He leaves it in place, all my senses shrilling my awareness of it, and reaches underneath me to pleasure me with one hand while continuing to spank me with the other. With every slap I can feel the plug jolting in my arse and I think I might scream.

I want/don't want him to take the plug out and fuck me in the arse, but he doesn't. He leaves it in while he goes down on me, which is maddening - I can't concentrate on either sensation and although the pleasure is overwhelming it's hard for me to climax. But I do, eventually, with his cock deep inside me and the high heels crossed around his back, the plug slipped out and forgotten a while ago.

--

Hot scene, but later I wonder, was it enough to earn my badge? He hasn't given me one yet (apart from in the obvious sense) and we're spending the next day together as well. Do I have more to come? That hand spanking was one of the most furious he's ever given me, if not necessarily the hardest I've ever taken. Or maybe it was that hard, and I was so turned on I didn't notice? In the end I ask him the question while we're making breakfast the next day. He says yes, he intends to give me the badge. I joke that he's earned one, too. He smiles.

Later that day, he's at his desk and I'm on the sofa with my laptop. I'm watching Pixie's Cause for Paws video. First I'm giggling at it, and then as the over the knee paddling and hairbrushing from her husband goes on and on at that intensity and speed, I'm hopelessly turned on.

I consider. We're both usually horny in the afternoons and tired by the evenings; it's an inconvenience we've lamented before. Well, here we both are. Why not seize the opportunity?

So I tell him about the video. "It's simultaneously sweet, funny and strangely intense, especially the OTK paddling scene. Mm. I'm all a-flutter now." I can feel my blush rising. "So. Um." I bite my lip and plunge in: "If you decided that you wanted to add a few more strokes to make me earn this spanking badge, I wouldn't mind." I'm bright pink.

He grins, and stands up. "Ha. Come on then."

I feel suddenly guilty for being so demanding. "It - er, it doesn't have to be now if you're busy..."

"No, no," he replies facetiously, "the bottom has spoken, I couldn't possibly delay," and his hand is out and his eyes are smiling. I make an on-the-spot decision to shut up and let him make my fantasy come true. I take his hand.

Standing in the bedroom, I'm shy and uncertain. He whistles to himself as he rummages in the toybox, taking things out, considering them and tossing some of them onto the bed. Wooden oval paddle. Belt. "Just in case I get bored." Length of rope. Meanwhile I take my skirt off. He tells me to leave my top and knickers on.

Over his knee I go. He's sitting on the edge of the bed, facing the mirrors: I'm lying across his lap with the rest of my weight on the bed. He asks me to put my hands behind my back, checks I'm comfortable, and ties my wrists together with the rope. He reaches up and tucks my hair out of my face, treating me to one of his most charming smiles in the mirror. My heart flutters.

Hand spanks first. Solid, stinging, satisfying. Every time we make eye contact in the mirror, sparks fly. When he reaches for the paddle and rests it against my bottom, it feels so cool against my hot cheeks, and I'm conscious that my face, pressed into the pillows, is hot to match.

He starts to use the paddle, proper hard stinging spanks, exactly what I was craving, making me jump and wriggle over his lap. I'm owwing and laughing and loving him, but it hurts. I'm watching my face and bottom turn pinker in the mirror; the former is pleasing and the latter embarrassing. He finds his rhythm and for a while I'm in my happy place. The paddle hurts a lot, but this is my fantasy and every whack makes me more turned on.

After a while he puts the paddle down and uses his hand, the difference in sensation enlivening the sting in my bottom. Does that mean he's bored? Well, maybe not, but he does have the belt in his hand, and he's doubling it up twice to make it easier to aim. The twice-doubled belt is only a few inches long and each stroke is a tiny heavy punch of sensation, none of that licking warmth I usually associate with the belt. I submit to it willingly. Any impact is good with me right now.

I'm red and sore and wriggling when he stops. He helps me up, and there's an ungainly struggle until I'm kneeling next to him on the bed, still bound, tousled and pink-faced and horny. He arranges me facedown on the bed. More spanking! ... But no, he's unzipping, for a quick, rough and dirty fuck which I really, at that point, am not at all minded to complain about.





It was one of the most indulgently instant-gratification scenes I'd ever enjoyed, and it was supremely satisfying. Afterwards I felt very loved, very happy, and very much as if I'd earned my badge.