amateur dramatics

I've just got back from a (mostly) vanilla theatre weekend with Tom, which was enormous fun. I rarely have the time to be in dramatic productions, even if I were good enough, but I love stage-acting. For the most part I keep the cravings at bay with spanking modelling, bedroom roleplay and amateur dramatic events with my friends, like this one.

Even among my non-scene friends there are quite a few kinksters, which occasionally surfaces in our interpration of plays. This weekend, for instance, saw a delightfully sleazy Lollio in The Changeling, threatening his hapless patients with a leather flogger. Elizabethan drama mentions whipping rather a lot, in fact, which can lead to some hilariously uncanonical laughs when the actors know each other's kinks. Such as my line as Lucio at the end of Measure for Measure:

"If you will hang me for it, you may; but I
had rather it would please you I might be whipt."

Definitely one to add to the list of lines to insert into a spanking movie.

--

I get a real kick off acting. Doing private play-readings or performances with a close group of friends is are just as much fun as making spanking movies, in a very different way. Acting together is something Tom and I have done since we first met, and our relationship thrives on the energy it generates. I've enjoyed a semi-sexual charge all weekend with dear friends who aren't and never will be lovers, but who understand the intimacy of that spark. And when Tom and I finally tore ourselves away from the merry-making, that energy poured itself into some of the hottest D/s sex we've had in weeks. Spanking wasn't on the agenda due to shared accommodation with thin walls (we didn't want to wake people up, although I suspect my cries were audible no matter how hard I tried to muffle them by biting down on the duvet), but we didn't need it. Watching him act makes me incredibly horny, and I'd been wanting to pounce him all weekend. When his hand finally closed around my throat and his eyes locked with mine, the rest of the world disappeared. I am his, and in that moment my awareness of the fact filled my whole consciousness. It was like my whole self became sublimely sensitive, responsive to the lightest of touches. It made my spine and my soul tingle.

If he can make me feel that way without even hurting me, I'm trembling with anticipation at the thought of what might happen now that we're home.

carry a big stick

I'm healing nicely, if by "nicely" you're referring to scabs and itching. The bruises are getting that old look, and I think the last stroke might leave a scar. At least, it's starting to look like one of those pasted-on fake wounds. Make that sexy if you can. ;)

Speaking of welts, how's this for a vintage spanking photo:



I love the classic Victorian "chained beauties" theme - it seems to have such an innocence to it, despite the total lack of innocence implicit in voluptuous naked girls being photographed bound and helpless. But one has to wonder if this photographer was genuinely into caning girls. At the very least the person in charge of props seems to have got the wrong end of the stick. As it were.

Pain4Fem gave us a choice of canes: 10mm or 12mm, peeled or not peeled (Amy tested them out and voted for unpeeled; I said I'd have what she was having. I may have still been slightly dazed by the sight of Amy thrashing the air in the studio with full force). And one huge rod the size of a walking stick, easily 18mm or 20mm across. Peter laughed about it but we weren't entirely sure whether it was a joke or not.

I've been hit by something that thickness before, and not with the kind of power that we were subject to in our judicial punishments. This domme appears to be using it with a gentle wrist action. I can tell you now, something that size would never leave neat little welts like that.

Reactions

I arrived at D's house to find him re-decorating. "What do you think of this as a spanking tool?" he quipped, holding up the long, thin metal plate that had been holding down the carpet at the doorframe. I looked at him. "Er, not at the moment, obviously," he added, hurriedly.

He'd been up a ladder when I arrived, but I begged a hug a little while later as he came out of the bathroom. He burrowed his face affectionately into my neck and his hands dropped almost automatically to cup my bottom. Then he checked himself, and gestured from my waist to my thigh. "Let me guess, you're untouchable from here to here, right?"

"Not totally untouchable, just don't squeeze!"

D, like several of you lot, doesn't really get the whole severity thing. He's more interested in sensation, control, mind-games. He prefers to make me shivering and vulnerable to the lightest of touches, amd then use pain in the subtlest of ways. As a result he doesn't appreciate heavy marking in the way Tom and I do. For me it's a badge of honour: for D it seems injurious, something distasteful and forlorn. I was prepared for him to be a bit freaked out by it, but he surprised me.

"Can I borrow your aloe?" I asked, and knelt up on his bed to apply it myself. I figured he wasn't going to appreciate being asked to do it for me. Afterwards I curled on my side with a contented sigh, glad to be lying down again after an evening helping him with DIY.

"Go on then, let's have a look," he said, in a tone of voice I couldn't quite interpret. I obligingly rolled over for him and he leaned over me, his fingertips lightly brushing my flanks. "Eh, you've had worse," he commented nonchalantly.

"Yes, but I was much younger then, and hadn't started doing this professionally ..." I trailed off; he had bent his head and was dropping the lightest of butterly kisses on every welt.

(As I was writing the above, my phone rang: it was D. "Have you taken your arnica?" he asked. I'd mentioned to him earlier that Amy and Lucy, bless them, had been on my case about forgetting to take it. I assured him I had: it was one of the first things I did when I got home. "Good girl," he said, "I had an alarm set on my phone to remind me to tell you to take it. See how much I love you?"

Yeah. Yeah, I do.)

--

Since yesterday I've been perpetually horny. I keep thinking about spankings. About what it would be like to be spanked, now, to see how much reaction could be triggered by the lightest of taps. The way I feel right now, I'd moan and beg for more. I'm nervous about asking either of my Doms to put me over their knee because I don't know how easy I'd be to damage right now: the last thing I want to come out of this experience with is my first weak spot. And don't worry, I'm not planning to ask for anything high-impact. But hands... I keep thinking (despite my comment to D) about hands on my bum, squeezing and fondling ... I keep thinking of my tender, bruised cheeks being exposed for the most sensual of spankings, every other smack interspersed with gentle caresses. I keep thinking, when else am I going to get the chance to know what that feels like?

I guess this is where you frighten me with warnings about permanent damage, tell me not to be so silly. Maybe I just need to be patient. I don't know though, patience has never been one of my strengths :)

severity and intimacy

Thankfully, I feel much less traumatised today. I got through work okay yesterday, but as I left the building at 6 o' clock my exhaustion seemed to roll over me like a wave. I was overwhelmed by the awareness that I'd struggled through the last three days without any real aftercare; I was freezing cold, my butt had been aching all day and as I stood up from my desk the blood seemed to flow back into the bruises and make them throb all the more ... within a minute I was shaking and tears were rolling down my cheeks.

Luckily my friend J lives round the corner from my office. He is not only a wonderful man but also an experienced Dom and sometime play partner of mine, and he only had to take one look at me to know exactly what I needed. One cup of tea with two sugars and a very warm bear-hug later, I was feeling a bit more normal and telling him all about the shoot. He stayed with me for twenty minutes even though he was due somewhere, bless him. By the time he left I was back in control, and could cope with getting myself and my suitcase home on a rush-hour London bus.

The benefits of having good friends who Get It. I'm a lucky girl.

I arrived home to a very attention-deprived cat, a cold flat and a frozen water system, but Tom turned up shortly afterwards and made everything better (including my plumbing, which was above and beyond the call of duty). He gave me cuddles, made me tea and a hot water bottle, and even went out in the cold by himself to bring back takeout. I settled down to a warm cat rapturously re-familiarising herself with my lap, and an evening with nothing planned but snuggling and watching DVDs. Perfect.

I didn't even know where to start with telling Tom about the shoot, so I showed him my most recent post, and my marks. He bent down behind me, casting an appraising eye over my bottom.

"Yup," he grinned, "that's a good start."

"Impressive, aren't they? And I don't even mark much these days!"

"That's because you don't let me hit you hard enough."

My lower lip wobbled a bit at that, but I didn't say anything because I knew what he meant. I don't want the hardest beatings I get in my life to all be from other people either.

This shoot was a huge event for me. Ever since I first started making spanking films I've been aware of the hard caners: Lupus Spanking, Mood Pictures, Pain4fem. Niki Flynn is one of the first friends I made in the scene, and since hearing about her experiences with Lupus the question has been on the edge of my mind; is this something I could do?

I remember watching my first Lupus DVD with Niki and Cameron - The Noise. It's one of the ones that has an hour of story and build-up before the two brutal, swift 50-stroke canings at the end. It also taps into one of my favourite kinky narratives, that of the human spirit flourishing in an oppressive regime - and, naturally, the human body being severely punished for the rebellion. I had my heart in my mouth for most of the film, particularly the prologue and the part leading up to the caning, where the girls look through the record books of previous punishments, full of clinical and grisly "before" and "after" pictures.

I didn't find the actual caning in The Noise erotic. I watched with a mixture of detachment and horrified fascination. My natural reaction when faced by something sensationalistically awful is to withdraw, to watch it with more curiosity than emotional engagement. But the fear and anticipation beforehand? That was hot.

I'm still not sure if I'd like to work with Lupus. I love the richness and detail of their films, I love their political narratives and sense of humour, and after Pain4fem I'm pretty sure I could take it. But I'm still not sure. For one thing - and this may make me sound mercenary but it's a practical concern - their fee isn't really high enough to cover the amount of time I'd need to take off work afterwards. Pain4fem pay by the stroke, which adds up to more than my usual rate over two days (even after paying an unexpected €45 excess baggage charge!). I'm grateful for it, because I think I'll need to spend a fair amount of the next week processing the experience and writing about it. And, of course, I'm not going to be able to model again until I've healed.

If my plans this year come off and I start filming my own material, then it doesn't really make sense for me to be marked for six weeks unless the resulting film is one of my own.

So this caning was a huge milestone for me. It's something I've been eyeing from a distance for years, wondering if I can do it. I'd like to work for Pain4fem again, and they've invited Amy and me back in the autumn if we're interested. But after that, I doubt I'll push myself to this level unless I'm producing the film myself. And I think that's going to be Tom's only opportunity to take me this far while I've still got a career in spanking.

Even then, submitting to this level of caning from him would be a hugely different experience. It wouldn't be brutal. He wouldn't want me screaming and yelling in outrage, or crying and miserable. We might be on camera, but I think he'd still want it to be deep and true and connected. I think he'd still want to make me fly.

This experience was nothing like that. I was doing this entirely for myself. Peter is lovely, professional, and an extremely accurate top, but there was no intimacy shared between us. Not even the friendly, flirty connection I enjoy when working with tops like Paul Kennedy or Stephen Lewis. During the caning I wasn't responding to Peter; my emotional landscape was wholly internal. Apart from encouraging myself to be brave with thoughts of Tom, I wasn't submissive and I wasn't giving anything to anyone.

That fact allowed me to immerse myself for the first time in the more brutal range of my fantasies. My character was sullen, angry, rebellious. I had to sit and watch Amy's caning on camera, which I didn't want to do - I wanted to wrap up warm and sip a drink and recover from the 15 fierce lashes of the singletail I'd just received on my back. I know that people watching spanking films want the girl watching a punishment to react with horror, fear and anticipation written on her face. Well, I was tired and I wanted a break, and my character intended to give her tormentors as little satisfaction as she could. And, as I said earlier, emotional detachment is my natural response anyway to watching something deliberately traumatic. So I hugged my knees and stared blankly into space, trying to block out the cracks of the cane and Amy's impressively hysterical weeping. Curiousity got the better of me a couple of times, when we paused between takes, and I wandered round to get a look at the welts, which were long and red and angry-looking. But once Amy's punishment started, the dread which had been eating at me for days had fled. I just wanted to get it over with.

So I wasn't submissive during the caning. I broke, after a few strokes; I had no desire to brazen the whole thing out even if I could have, and I'd decided to let my willpower crack at pretty much its own pace. I wasn't performing for anyone. I stared straight ahead of me between strokes, and found it extremely difficult to interact with anyone when they paused filming to give me a break. I didn't yelp, I yelled - or, on the hardest strokes, screamed with rage and pain. And I got to fully immerse myself in the kind of truly brutal, miserable, unfair punishment I've fantasised about my whole life.

I don't think I could ever achieve that space with Tom; our dynamic is too loving. This caning was cold and hard and clinical and I took it in isolation. That was a massive part of the experience, for me, and I don't think I'm going to want to re-live it more than once or twice.

I was going to tell you more details about the shoot, but that can wait for another entry. In the meantime, here are last night's Bruise Update photos:

aftermath

Well, we did it.

We got home at 2am last night, after an extremely uncomfortable plane journey, landing in the UK in freezing fog at midnight and having to get a chilly night train to London. At 10am this morning I was in the office, where I'm currently doing part-time contract work. I ache all over, and desperately want to just curl up under a duvet. Preferably without putting any weight on my bottom.

Two long days of punishment, incorporating the famous whipping machine, falaka, breast whipping and much more back whipping than I'm used to, and culminating in the hardest cold caning of my life. 35 strokes, the last three of which were the infamous "very hard" option, which is in no way an exaggeration. My bottom is a delightfully gruesome sight, particularly the bloody welt from the last stroke which landed a clear inch above the rest, and was possibly the hardest stroke of all.





I'm already a bit obsessed with the marks, and sneak a peak in the bathroom mirror every time I go to the loo to see how the bruises are developing. I'm hard to mark these days, and these bruises are reminding me pleasantly of the result of my first few hard play sessions, back when Tom and I had just met.

Immediately after filming my bottom was red and pink and purple, with huge, solid slabs of bruise starting to swell under the skin. I was shocked when I caught sight of it in the mirror a couple of hours later at the dramatic black and blue colours that were starting to cover my entire ass. I ran back into the bedroom and got Amy to take another photo:



They were even more impressive this morning, the blacks and purples blossoming outwards to cover my entire cheeks, leaving a strange pale patch in the centre of each.

For the four hours of travelling the discomfort wasn't even sexy. I was shattered, and as the dopamine crash started to hit I felt like I was falling apart. Tears welled up for no reason, my hands were shaking and I desperately wanted a cuddle. I was amazed at Amy's composure, how calmly she was coping when surely she was hurting just as much as I was. I felt like one massive bruise, and had to restrain myself from continually whinging about it.

I still haven't had enough sleep, and today the dull ache in my backside is still not sexy, but I'm too tired to be annoyed about it. I'm focussing on work and looking forward to seeing Tom tonight for some slightly belated aftercare.

It's strange. The caning itself was an extreme, amazing experience. I felt pushed absolutely to my limits as an actress and a masochist. I can't remember ever screaming that intensely before. There was no space for moderating my responses; I got myself into character and from there it was pretty much completely involuntary. And at the time, it wasn't erotic. Not in the way the breast whipping the day before had been erotic, twisting my hips and pressing my thighs together to try to disguise my arousal. I didn't even think to notice whether or not I was wet after the caning. The experience transcended lust.

And yet ... even though the dull ache as I sit is more exhausting than erotic, even though I'm still short of sleep after the last two days and desperately looking forward to the weekend, even though I'm distracted by work ... when my memory flicks back to the caning, which I haven't really started to emotionally process yet, my body responds with an involuntary flicker of heat. I may not have been aroused at the time, but the whole experience of it was sexually charged, if only because of how frightened I was, and the memory of it is definitely hot. I imagine that as I achieve more distance from the event I'll find the memories even hotter. If anything, the continued dull pain of the bruising is inhibiting my arousal rather than contributing to it.

I was almost sick with nerves beforehand. I sent Tom a worried text, asking for reassurance, and he replied with this:

You will be fine: not only are you professional, you are also a horny wench :) I love you, and will be very proud of you. *cuddles*

I am very lucky to have someone who knows me that well, who knows exactly what to say to calm me and strengthen my resolve. As I was fastened to the caning block a part of my brain focussed on Tom, on what he would think when he watched the film, whether he'd be proud of how I took it. I very much wanted him to be, and holding that in mind helped more than I can say.

spanking over slips

Slips seem to be coming back into fashion. I don't usually wear them myself, unless I'm dressing up in Victorian attire, in which case it's a full-length petticoat. But I know an increasing number of young ladies who are rediscovering the joys of a full-length slip or chemise under dresses, or a half-slip under kneelength skirts.

Strangely, despite the increase in mainstream popularity I haven't seen many slips featured in spanking photos. You'd think that spankos would be taking the lead on the resurgence of the slip (and if this thread is anything to go by, some of you certainly do). Consider the slow reveal of most spanking porn, which is so popular it's become cliche: first, the innocent spanking over the skirt, chaste enough for any realistic teacher/schoolgirl or daddy/daughter scenario. Then, more humiliatingly, over panties - full panties, of course, never a thong, or else this stage would be meaningless. The exposure of the bare bottom is made more powerful by anticipation, both to the spankee and the viewer. We like full knickers because of their old-fashioned innocence, the way they flatter and support the shape of the ass, the way they take the edge off a the sharpest smacks and leave total nudity to the imagination. We like all these things as a prelude to the end-game of bare bottom punishment, and as a game in themselves.

Slips have all of that old-world glamour, and they add an extra layer of mystique to the undressing process. They peep seductively under the hems of skirts, adding a tantalising glimpse of satiny lingerie. Does the colour and fabric of the slip one can see peeking out just above the knee match the panties hidden underneath? A girl wearing a slip is suddenly a lady - which makes turning her into a girl again with a spanking all the more profound. Slips feel silky and sensual to the wearer and, in this coldest of winters, provide a much-needed extra layer of insulation. Surely they're the ideal spanko garment.

So where are the shoots featuring spanking over slips? Is this a niche that needs to be filled?

to the east

Today I'm flying to Bratislava for a two day shoot with SpankingServer/Pain4Fem, accompanied by the delectable Amy Hunter. I've filled a suitcase with dresses, lingerie, tartan miniskirts, school uniform, over-knee socks and dozens and dozens of knickers. I've packed aloe vera gel, vitamin E cream, hairbands and a European adaptor for my phone charger. I've showered and shaved and moisturised, and dressed in comfortable warm clothes for travelling. (I always forget how aggressive the air conditioning is on planes.) I've got a couple of novels to read, and a notebook and pen for keeping notes for the blog.

I've been nervous about this shoot for over a month. Spanking Server are, according to Niki Flynn who is the only person I know to have worked with them, absolutely lovely, and I've re-read the chapter in her book about filming The Spy with them. We aren't attempting anything so ambitious, although I'm taking all of your suggestions with me in case they're open to ideas. However, I know that they pay by the stroke, with different rates for "hard" and "very hard". I know from Nikis' boyfriend Cameron that the four "very hard" strokes she received at the end of her forty-or-so-stroke caning were the hardest strokes he had ever seen delivered by anyone. So I don't know if I'm going to be asking for any of those. Even forty hard strokes sounds like an awful lot to me, who hasn't been playing much these last few months.

So I've been nervous as all hell. I've been nervous about the long caning in the full-length film. I've been nervous about language barrier, not speaking German or Czech. I've been nervous about the lack of info I have about the film, because it always helps if I'm able to prepare.

But all that nervousness seemed to burn away at the start of this week, when the shoot stopped being an abstract looming concept and became the work I was doing in the next few days. I've been sorting out travel plans, working out where I'm staying after our train gets back into London in the middle of Thursday night.

I was talking to Tom about this last night, and the thing is that I know it's always okay on the day. We'll have a whole day of clips before the longer film, and I know I can do clips, I'm not afraid of those. I'll be thoroughly warmed up by the time it gets tough. I'll have Amy there for moral support and someone to chat to in English, and if she can do it then I reckon I have a fair chance at coping.

And I know that the first ten strokes of the hard caning will be the worst. They always are. But the next twenty, or thirty, or however many it is - by then the endorphins should have started to flow, and maybe three or four 'very hard' strokes won't be beyond me after all, by the end.

Two and a half years ago I flew out to Mallorca for my second ever spanking shoot. I was travelling alone to meet people I'd only briefly communicated with by email. They mostly spoke German, and put me up in a hostel on my own for the night. The shoot was with Girls Boarding School, the couple who run the site with were wonderful, friendly, supportive people who were a joy to work with, and everything was fine. I don't even remember being scared beforehand, although I suppose I must have been. I remember it being an adventure.

If I could do that, younger and inexperienced with only one short clips shoot to my name, then I can do this.

See you on the flipside.

fear and forgetfulness

I was originally planning to tell you about the whipping Tom gave me on New Year's Day, in the spirit of starting the year as you mean to continue. But we've played again since then and, to my dismay, the scenes are already blurring together in my memory.

Two scenes in one week is less common for us than you might imagine. 2008 was a difficult year in many ways, and health problems, work, house moves have all got in the way of kinky activities. Not that our relationship has suffered - we've always been very good at looking after each other, and the last few months have seen a lot of cooking and relaxing together, gentle spankings and snuggling. And all that is lovely. But we've both missed the other stuff. Since we first hooked up six years ago our relationship has been defined by the breathtaking intensity we can achieve together, the severity we both crave.

Tom is an extremely careful and responsible dominant. He would much rather wait than risk a scene when he's exhausted and his judgement might be impaired. So we've been waiting, and for the most part he's been much more patient than I have.

Now that, gradually, we're rediscovering our energy; now that we're finding a space we can play in, re-awarkening the spark that was always there, it's a source of joy to us both. And it's scary, at least for me.

Not at the time, not really. He knows me very well. When we started on the first morning of the new year, he began by kissing me down the length of my body, a kiss that built slowly to a deeply satisfying orgasm that left me smiling and languorous. I had sleepily started to return the favour when he told me to set up the pillows in the middle of the bed, and in my soft, contented state it didn't even occur to me to be frightened.

He was gentle with me, at first. He started with a thin bamboo switch, playing it rapidly over my bottom and thighs in a way that only tingled at first, the sensation building so lightly that it didn't panic me. I stayed relaxed, only moaning more deeply as the flickering switch started to cut more deeply.

I can't remember exactly what was next. At one point he cropped me, a slow series of hard strokes that covered every heated inch of my bottom. At another he definitely paddled me, and I think it was because I'd started to shrink away from the sharper pain, my will rising like bile and coming between us. He was kind, and the paddle achieved the effect he was after - I stopped fighting back, accepting the pain and letting it wash over me.



The final implement that day was the martinet, with the thick square-tipped leather thongs that are terrifyingly heavy if used with full force. The ends whip around and strike the soft sides of the flank as if bullets were sewn into them. He started with it after the crop, but I twitched away from the sensation, unable to relax into it. The scattered peppering of the tips bit into me seemingly at random, and all the warmth the crop had wakened in me seemed to flee. I shied away, plaintive and frightened. And he was merciful, and followed my lead when I suggested the paddle. The even, solid sensation of the wood after the stinging, difficult martinet was strangely soothing.

But he returned to the martinet afterwards, with 24 heavy strokes. I remember not liking those, either, but it was easier to submit to them gracefully after he'd granted my request for the paddle.

The other scene, too, started with a switching - the plastic cat toy, although at first I thought it was one of our thin canes. That evening it was the heavy leather strap that made me flinch away, made him tone down his strokes to ones I could manage. I was disappointed, afterwards, that he hadn't continued at the heavier pace, but we both knew that I would have rebelled and it would have been miserable. He caned me, afterwards, and it was delicious, but I was tormented by the knowledge that he'd gone easy on me - and, worse, that if he hadn't I wouldn't have been able to cope.

We ended up talking about it a few days later, about the depth of my submission to him these days, how my growing adult independence and the difficulties of last year - among other things - have affected how much I'm able to give him. I think spanking modelling is a part of it, too.

When we're playing, nowadays, I'm less interested in what he wants and much more focussed on my own needs. If I crave a particular sensation, my body is stubborn and he can't easily persuade me to enjoy something I'm not in the mood for. And that isn't how it should be. What he wants should be enough; it should be arousing by the simple fact of it being him that wants it. Of course I trust him not to go beyond my limits. I'm talking here about my mercuriality, my moodiness, my desire to stay in control of what's happening. I'm working on changing it. The conversation we had about this was positive, if difficult. I'm still learning how to submit as an adult as deeply as I did when I was a teenager, but without the unhealthy elements of obsession and dependence which coloured our relationship then.

And re-learning how to give a scene to him, after years of building up my professional self-knowledge and control, is hard. When I'm filming I have a responsibility to my top to stay in control of myself, to be aware of my limits. When I'm subbing, I explicitly surrender that responsibility. Or at least, I should.

I want to learn to let go again. I miss the euphoria and intimacy of total surrender. I miss being able to fly. But it's a big emotional leap, and we're both nervous about whether I'll be able to make it.

Playing long, erotic scenes that re-awaken my senses definitely helps. Remembering how hot pain can be definitely helps. But Tom's gentleness is predicated partly on my reluctance to let him push me. The fact that, in both of the scenes this week, I was never truly frightened is not necessarily a good thing. I need to be frightened again; I need to trust him to take me places I hadn't necessarily planned for, and carry me through them. Hot as they are, the scenes tailored to my enjoyment will never really be enough.

New Year's Eve

I didn't get to spend New Year's Eve the way I wanted.

For a start, I wasn't able to be with both my boys. Tom works in the hospitality industry, and he had to stay at work past midnight. I decided to go along and keep him company, but we were surrounded by the other guests, and his boss and co-workers, so there was no opportunity for privacy.

What I'd have liked, if we could have stayed at home, would be to ring in the New Year with twelve cane strokes. Each in time with the chime of midnight. Perhaps, for extra dramatic effect, we'd have the BBC on in the background, and the strokes would fall in time with the ringing of Big Ben. Or perhaps he'd keep time himself. I've written about the concept of a caning clock before, and I like the idea of using the emotional curve of a caning to more powerfully mark the changing of the years. How much more acute would the anticipation be, in the countdown to midnight, knowing what was coming? How intense would it be, flying into the new year on a wave of endorphins, snuggled and content in the aftermath of a punishment well-taken? What better way of cleansing oneself of those aspects of 2008 one would rather leave behind?

Sadly, this year it was not to be. At midnight we enjoyed a toast and a kiss, and saved the play until the next day, once we'd had some sleep. I'm hoping to write about that in more detail tomorrow, but until then this should give you an idea of how much fun we had:



I'm not the first person to think the idea of a midnight caning is hot. Abel from the Spanking Writers had a similar idea, and Prefectdt posted a cute caning clip to mark the ten-second countdown to midnight. And if you're interested in cleansing rituals, Olivia has written a beautiful post about her own personal traditions.

I'm looking forward to being able to start my own.

on being a grown-up

I spent Christmas this year with my partners and family of choice. My parents have just moved overseas (which makes it slightly easier to have a porn career, I'll admit), and while I'd normally want to spend Christmas with my lovely brother and sister-in-law, this year their filial duty required that they visit her family. My sister-in-law is practically my sister, and I love her to bits. I was sorry not to be able to spend the day with them, and as soon as my first glass of champagne was poured on Christmas morning I phoned them up to wish them merry Christmas.

We gossiped for ages, and I chatted about how weird it was not having my mum and dad around. But it was balanced out by how awesome a time I was having, sharing Christmas just with friends and lovers. "I mean, we could have sex on Christmas day and everything!" I exclaimed, "it's a complete novelty!" My sister agreed enthusiastically, saying that this was exactly why she and my brother had gone on a dirty weekend just before Christmas.

Of course, because this is us, my Doms and I didn't just have Christmas sex. I was the happy recipient of two Christmas spankings this year, one from each of them. My sister isn't quite close enough to want to know about them in detail, but hey, that's why I have a blog.

For D, I wore a figure-hugging minidress in festive red, fully-fashioned stockings, and my new Christmas shoes. I'd made him and Tom stockings this year as a surprise, traditional red velvet with white fur trim like the ones my mum made for me when I was little.

After D. had opened all his presents I was fooling around wearing the empty stocking on one foot, and making bad puns about being a stocking filler.

"Go on then," he quipped, expecting me not to have brought stockings with me, but I had. I'm good like that, me. So I grinned and nipped next door and got dressed up, and he sat down on the corner of the bed and he tied my red ribbon around my neck, the one that I wear to remind me I'm his. It matched the dress and made me feel like a present ready to be unwrapped. Then he kissed me and pulled me over his lap, and gave me a firm and sensual spanking that pressed all my buttons and made me more than ready for the fucking he then gave me, with my reddened bum lifted for him and my face pressed into the bed.

Yum.

I saw Tom the next day, and we had langourous morning sex with the sunlight spilling into his room - giving his bed, with its white cotton sheets, a profound sense of peacefulness. This we proceeded to thoroughly disturb with a slow, hard over-the-knee spanking that had me moaning. Every other stroke he paused to rub my tingling cheeks, and I clung to his thigh and wriggled in delight.

No edgy play, no implements, no scene formalities. (No santa hats, either, despite the photo.) Neither of them sought to push me and the mood was joyful, celebratory. I may even have laughed with delight, inbetween yelps. It was simple and loving and perfect.

If this is what being a grown-up means, I'm all in favour.

Affinity

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone's having a brilliant holiday. Today was my first day "back at work", but I'm afraid I haven't achieved very much. Having spent the last four days drinking, carousing and staying up all night with my family of choice, I'm still recovering. I got up this morning, blearily checked my email, cursed my freezing cold flat, and at the point I discovered I had neither hot water for a shower nor milk for tea, I gave up on the day and went back to bed.

I absolutely don't regret this decision, as I can catch up on work later in the week, and my morning was delicious. I didn't go back to sleep, but I ate all of a Thorntons Eden box of very sinful chocolates, and finished reading Affinity, the new Sarah Waters novel which was my Christmas gift to myself.

Sarah Waters' books perfectly map a substantial part of my fantasy landscape. The only difference is that her Victorian London is queer, and mine is queer and kinky. The queer relationships she describes tend to be tragic and complex; full of repression, oppression, changing alliances, dysfunctional power dynamics and unrequited longing. As a queer woman I kind of wish she applied her formidable skill as a storyteller to describing healthy, cheerful lesbian relationships ... but hey, they make much less interesting stories. (And, I'll be honest: her portrayal of same-sex relationships pretty much matches my own experiences so far. I hope to meet a woman one day with whom I can enjoy romance without unnecessary drama, but haven't yet. This might say more about me than anything else though.)

The lesbians aren't the main reason I love Waters' work, although as a submissive I adore the unjust power dynamics in her romances. And I admire the sophistication of her narrative techniques, her twisting, thrilling plots that never fail to surprise me. But her main appeal, shallow though this may make me, is the immersive, compelling way she writes about Victorian institutions.

Huge households, where the family and staff form an insular hierarchy, with the lowest servants at the mercy of those above them. Asylums for the insane, where women are straitjacketed, subjected to electroshock and cold water treatment, have their hair cut and are punished for not conforming. More indirectly, she also writes about the intricate, written social institutions of the Victorian underworld: the theatre; sex workers; families of thieves. In Affinity both these trends are continued with a story that threads between three settings: the dark circles of Victorian spiritualists, dabbling with ghosts and mysticism with their own set of rules and expectations; a miserable great house rife with tensions between aristocrats and servants; and a ghastly, towering women's prison cut off from the rest of London on its own grim island.

I bought the book since writing my last post, without even realising what it was about. Having finished it, I'm finding it harder than ever to get my image of prison out of the 19th century.

Affinity doesn't contain any mention of CP, but every scene seems to be pregnant with the possibility of it. The strict rules of the prison and the ogreish matrons who patrol it. The tragic stories of the women who find themselves there - abortionists, attempted suicides, prostitutes, pickpockets - most of them poor, few of them with other options. The aristocratic ladies in Waters' books are rarely sympathetic, and her working-glass characters tend to be far more real and interesting.

My fantasies tend not to focus on deserved punishment, but on unjust mistreatment; what better setting than a barbaric, miserable prison populated for the most part, not by criminal masterminds, but the gutsy victims of misfortune?

Affinity is packed full of details to delight the kinky imagination. The rigid structure of the prison day; the lessons given twice a week from tattered textbooks, in which the grown women stand with hands clasped before them to recite their Bibles. Visits to the prison chaplain; the chief Matron's office with its wooden posts and shackles. Cruel forced exercise; pointless work that makes your fingers bleed and your eyes itche; stockrooms full of chains, hobbles and handcuffs; tiny, damp, freezing cells buried deep below the Thames where rebellious women are straitjacketed and shut up for days in the absolute dark.

Or maybe the details aren't important. Maybe the point is the system, the institutional structure intended to shut down all humanity ... and yet, conversely where the tiniest glimmer of kindness seems to glow all the brighter.

Sadly, I don't have the budget to make a spanking film set in Millbank Prison. But if it's possible to make a film that captures the essence of the institutional context - the controlling, oppressive, punishing atmosphere and the inspiring way that the human spark can respond to it - then, I think, I'll be on the way to expressing one of the most important internal narratives of my kink.

All I need now is for Waters to write a book set in an educational seminary for young ladies, and I'll be set.

prison stories

Christmas is approaching surprisingly fast. Particularly if you're me, and only started getting ready a week ago. I bought most of my presents online in a panicked spree, and am now sitting at home with one postal day left, despairing that any of them will arrive in time. That'll teach me.

What with that, planning and shopping for TWO Christmas dinners (one with each of my partners) and all the complexities of seasonal poly house-hopping, I haven't had much time to think about spanking films. Which is starting to worry me a little, as Amy Hunter and I are flying out to Eastern Europe in the first week of January to film with Pain4Fem / SpankingServer, and I haven't come up with a story yet.

If I understand correctly, we'll be doing one day shooting clips and one day shooting a longer film. They've said they want to do a straightforward movie with a prison theme, using the cane and some of their infamous spanking furniture. I haven't been told anything else yet, and probably if I did no more planning between now and then we'd improvise a simple punishment story on the day. But Pain4Fem have high production values, and may well be open to suggestions - and I've been thinking that it would be a shame to waste the opportunity to make a truly memorable film.

The problem is that I'm lacking inspiration. If I think of spanking in prison, my first thought is of reformatories, Dickensian workhouses, Magdalen laundries. Birching blocks and dirty petticoats. I don't really have imaginative set-pieces based in clean, modern Eastern European rooms with well-made furniture and good lighting. Of course there are the classic juvenile detention, smuggling stories but I'd like to do something a bit different, if Pain4Fem are willing.

You're an imaginative bunch - have a think about it over the Christmas break and let me know if you have any bright ideas. I can't promise anything, of course, because any suggestions will have to be okay with Amy as well as the producers, and I don't know what limitations they have in terms of sets and so forth. But if you're familiar with Pain4Fem's work and know what you'd like to see, I'd be very interested to hear your ideas...

on dialogue

I'm a sucker for plot in spanking films. It doesn't need to be jam-packed and twisty, but the characters need to interact in a meaningful way, with discernable motives. There's nothing worse, for me, than a punishment clip which doesn't bother to explain what the punishment is for, or a "naughty girl" whose disobedience is completely inexplicable. Dialogue is one of the most efficient ways of developing character development, and the more engaged I am with the characters, the more powerful the scene is to watch.

More dialogue isn't always better - I realise the advantages of minimalism. Non-stop chattering during a punishment isn't always realistic, and silence can create intensity. In TV and film all dialogue serves a purpose; the same rule applies to the best spanking films. In real-life scenes as well as on-camera ones, it's generally a good idea to only say something if you've got something to say - talking for the sake of it will just weaken the emotional impact of the scene.

But I can get very bored watching long action sequences where nothing happens. If not dialogue, then please let's have some variation in tempo, some struggle, some unpredictable response from the spankee.

And since dialogue in most spanking films is improvised, there's a pressure on the actors to come up with something witty and interesting. If the cameras are rolling and I can't think of anything to say, does that mean that nothing needs saying and I should keep my mouth shut, or does it suggest a failure of imagination?

Last weekend I was filming with Northern Spanking, and - unusually - we only shot one film all day. The rest of the time was spent with Paul, creating classic Blushes-inspired photostories. Stills involve a very weird kind of acting. Slow-motion, silent, interspersed with off-camera asides. And yet, like moving through yoga poses, I can get really immersed in my character for stills. I'm much more likely to make myself cry for stills than video, because I have so much more time and space to imagine myself in my character's situation and work up an emotional response.

When we started shooting the film, a straightforward period maidservant punishment, I wasn't really warmed up for video. I'd been told to answer the Master of the house back, thereby earning a more severe punishment, but I've done quite a lot of historical maid roleplays and you really don't talk back. You say yes sir and yes miss and you bob curtseys and don't make eye contact and you don't say a word you don't absolutely need to until you're back downstairs and among your peers.

I was being punished for failing to make the beds properly, among other things, and beforehand I was trying to think up excuses. I decided to pass the buck and claim that I'd been shown how to do it differently, but Michael Stamp (who was playing the Master) pre-empted me with the line, "I know you know how to do it properly, don't try and tell me you don't or you'll be sacked on the spot." So I was a bit stuck, really.

I risked an outburst (of the "it's not fair!" variety) which was really quite ridiculously out of character and would have instantly lost me my job, and then during the punishment itself I really couldn't justify any further cheek. It would have been unrealistic, and I couldn't think of anything else to say. So I just reacted to the strokes, and said "yes sir" a few times at the end, and felt a bit like a failure as an actress.

When I confessed my anxiety to Lucy she reassured me that it was fine, that my character wouldn't have argued back - and Niki told me that she thought I'd been outrageously rude. I don't know if I was too submissive or too rude. I expect that a lot of the people watching the film won't be bothered either way. But as an actor it's hard to judge, sometimes, how much dialogue is enough. Films which crackle with witty banter are very satisfying to make. Quieter films can be very immersive if you've planned them that way, but if it's just that I can't think of a plausible line then I worry that viewers will lose interest.

The thing is that when I'm playing at home I'm usually pretty obedient. I do as I'm told, most of the time, and I certainly don't say much once I'm in subspace. When I'm bratting on camera my mind is constantly racing to try to provide material. It's a lot of fun, but it doesn't come naturally to me.

I know dialogue isn't the only thing that matters. If I'm watching a spanking movie I'd rather no dialogue than unconvincing or corny lines. The photography, the quality of the CP, the context, the spankee's reactions are all just as important. Non-verbal communication is very powerful, and I always try to be physically and vocally expressive - it's just as important at home, when I need to communicate my responses accurately and respectfully to my Dom but am disinclined to do so verbally, as it is when I'm working. But when I'm on camera, dialogue can seem like the most important part of my job, and it's easy to worry I haven't got it right.

The Australian Governess

I've had a few requests from readers lately asking where they can buy DVDs starring me. I'm extremely flattered to be asked, and somewhat frustrated to tell you that while I've filmed six feature-length DVDs over the last two years, only two of them have actually been edited and released thus far. (I'm working on the others - I want to see them!)

'The Australian Governess' was released in four parts by Northern Spanking just over a year ago. I'm not, in fact, the star. The stars of the piece are Faith Andrews and Zoe Montana, who show off their beautiful figures and fantastic acting skills in two power-switching roles that completely steal the show. I defy anyone to watch this film and not fall half in love with one or both of them. Two sensual women who are equally capable of dishing out stern discipline or submitting to it - what more could you ask?

Faith plays the glamorous young wife of Stephen Lewis, who hires a modern young governess (Miss Bell, played by Zoe) in an attempt to instil some discipline in her new husband's spoiled and bratty teenage daughter. Who is played by yours truly ;) I'm deeply hostile towards my father's new wife, who is almost as young as I am, and resent her intrusion into my over-privileged little world. Miss Bell is, at first, very reluctant to use corporal punishment, which she views as misguided and barbaric, but after spending a short time with her new ward she quickly starts to see its advantages.

I'm only in the second scene of this ambitious four-part film, and I had tremendous fun with it. Zoe and I are old friends and we had a great time with the improvised dialogue. My character has, during her short life, gleefully sent numerous nannies and tutors packing in tears, and is determined that this one will be no different. But her attempts to get a rise out of the relaxed young Australian governess are met with a casual, incredulous indifference. My character just ends getting herself into a tizz, and by the time Miss Bell pulls her over her knee for a well-earned spanking the teenager isn't at all sure of herself.

I'm not a natural brat, and Zoe didn't make it easy for me. She's the embodiment of unflappable calm, and trying to provoke her into spanking me was far harder than I'd anticipated. My character ends up bent over the school desk for a strapping and caning - but Zoe never loses her cool, and as she quietly scorns my adolescent posturing she definitely comes out on top.

If you're still not convinced, I hope Northern Spanking won't mind me reposting the summary of the film from the website, and a small selection of stills:

'The Australian Governess'

Starring
Zoe Montana as The Governess, Miss Bell
Faith Andrews as The Stepmother
Pandora Blake as The Stepdaughter
Stephen Lewis as The Father

CHAPTER ONE - MISS BELL'S INTERVIEW

Miss Bell is attending an interview for the position of new Governess for an unruly teenage girl. Interviewed by the girls' stepmother it is made abundantly clear that the woman has very little time for her step daughter and expects her Governess to apply some fairly strict discipline. Assuming the stepmother slightly batty, Miss Bell goes along with it for the sake of securing the job but has no intention of carrying out these bizarre rituals on her charge...



CHAPTER TWO - MISS BELL MEETS PANDORA

Her first day with her unruly charge, Miss Bell decides to tackle her straight on with a sense of humour and not taking the gobby little Madam too seriously. However, even the laidback antipodean Miss Bell has her limits - as Pandora swiftly finds out when she continues to challenge her new governess.



CHAPTER THREE - FATHER COMES HOME

As Miss Bell cracks the cane with a satisfying thwack across Pandora's stinging bottom, Pandora's father comes to the schoolroom. Outraged to find some stranger whacking his daughter, his temper snaps and Miss Bell finds herself quickly upturned before she can explain herself. If only he would listen to what she has to say...



CHAPTER FOUR - REVENGE
Stephen and Miss Bell confront the wicked stepmother and it is not long before Faith is facing the most utterly humiliating 20 minutes of her life as the Governess she spurned and her husband make her pay.



As it happens, I was filming with Paul and Lucy last weekend, and when I mentioned that I'd had some interest in DVDs they very kindly lent me a small pile of these to take home with me. Members of Northern Spanking can download it from the website, but if for some reason you haven't signed up and would like to treat yourself to one of these for Christmas, let me know - you can buy it via Paypal and I'll post it to you personally. They're priced at £25 each, which is a bargain for an action-packed hour and a half featuring three very different spankees. And if you know someone who might appreciate a kinky Christmas gift, make sure you let me know by Saturday, because there's still time for it to reach you in the Christmas post :)

unexpected consequences

D's style of dominance is inherently intuitive and unstructured. He likes being unpredictable, to keep me guessing.

Despite keeping our D/s relationship deliberately unstructured, in certain other ways he's very methodical. His housekeeping, for example, while not always tidy, is painstakingly precise. Everything needs to be in exactly the right place. We don't have many "rules", but the ones we do have all relate to how I should behave in his flat. Putting the toilet seat down, that kind of thing.

We were out last weekend and chatting about random stuff when he suddenly remembered something. "By the way, I have something to tell you," he said. "When you left my house this morning you not only left all the doors open, so the heat in the lounge and the bedroom escaped and wasted loads of energy, you also left lights on in both rooms all day."

I was confused, and immediately became defensive. "I don't remember going into the lounge this morning," I argued. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. You left the toilet door and the lounge door open. And the lights on. You did remember to double lock the front door behind you, though."

"I was going to say!" I hesitated, realising that it was silly to argue with him ... and, from the expression on his face, that he wasn't just mentioning this to be critical. "Does ... this mean I'm in trouble?"

"Yes." He gave me a Look, and refused to say anything else about it.

I hate waiting.

We spent the night together at my place, but I didn't get the threatened punishment that evening. In fact we were both stressed out and tired that weekend, and the next day we ended up bickering. I made a bratty comment about the fact he hadn't made good on his threat. "You shouldn't say you're going to do things and then not do them."

"I never said when I was going to do anything," he retorted. "You shouldn't leap to assumptions."

I shut up. If he wants to make me wait, there's nothing I can do about it.

I next saw him a few days later. I'd had a really hectic day and turned up at his flat very late, intending to just curl up to sleep. We were going to bed, and I realised I'd forgotten to fetch a glass of water. I'm a light sleeper and like to sip water during the night. When I came back from the kitchen D was sitting up in bed, looking at me with an unreadable expression on his face.

"What?" I asked, feeling self-conscious.

"You left the door open. Again. There is a heater on in this room. The warm is in here, you shouldn't let it out."

"Oops," I said guiltily as I got into bed, "sorry."

"Uh huh." He shot me a sideways glance, half exasperated and half amused, and reached over the side of the bed to the toybox stored underneath. "Roll over."

I turned onto my front obediently, sneaking a peek. He was holding the wooden paddle. My heart was racing.

I was under the duvet; he reached down and peeled it up from the foot end, exposing my legs but folding it over my waist so it covered my upper body. Then he fetched a blanket and draped it over my legs. I was grateful for the warmth - it was a freezing night - but the coverings also served to make my exposed bottom feel more vulnerable. I felt objectified, reduced to just two unmarked globes awaiting the crisp sting of the paddle. I buried my face in the pillows.

"This is for leaving the door open just now," D said, and delivered a swift volley of smacks to my cold cheeks. No warm up, just six brisk whacks in quick succession. I cried out and twisted my hips. After the sixth stroke he paused and stroked my stinging bottom. It felt covered in goosepimples.

"And this is for leaving the doors open the other day," D continued, applying the paddle again. Six more strokes, without a pause. I grabbed at the duvet and wailed.

He put the paddle down, pushed the duvet aside and drew me into his arms. A smile played on his lips. "I can't work out what you deserve for leaving two lights on all day," he said, "so maybe you should try and placate me before I decide..."

I thought that sounded like a much better idea than more punishment, and pleasured him with all the enthusiasm a freshly spanked bottom can muster. I love belonging to someone who never ceases to surprise me. :)

a tribute

Earlier this week I saw an article saying that Bettie Page had suffered a heart attack at the age of 85, and was in hospital near San Francisco. She never regained consciousness, and died this morning.

Bettie's story is a poignant one. She was a secretary before she turned to modelling, and her free spirit and joyous, unashamed sensuality took the world by storm. She made a name for herself as a a glamour pin-up, as a fashion and lingerie model, as a switch in bondage and spanking shoots. She was one of the first nude Playboy centrefolds, and one of the most photographed women of her time.

From what I've read, she wasn't particularly kinky. Rather she was fascinated by human sexuality, endlessly curious and a versatile actress. She delighted in trying new things and enjoyed the silliness of fetish modelling. When fans, on meeting her, expected her to behave like a Domme or sub they were usually disappointed.

When she was subpoenaed to appear in court as a witness in an obscenity case, in which certain of her pictures were condemned as pornographic and damaging, she never recovered. She withdrew from public life for fifty years, becoming a born-again Christian and refusing to let anyone take her photograph. She struggled with mental health issues.

These days Bettie Page is praised for her self-determination and sexual liberation. Her work is iconic among vanillas and kinksters alike. She's credited with influencing the sexual revolution of the sixties. But her retirement was a troubled one, and she may have lived with anxiety or regret about her modelling career for the rest of her life.

We know there's nothing unhealthy or damaging about kinky pictures. We know that Bettie's exuberant celebration of sexuality found the same joyful expression in her BDSM work as in her radiant outdoor nudes. We know that she didn't have anything to be ashamed, or embarrassed, or troubled about.

I hope she came to realise that as well, in the privacy of her old age. and I hope she came to accept and celebrate her sensuality, her exhibitionism, her wilder side. Rest in peace, Bettie Page. You changed the world, and you deserve to feel good about that.

welcome to the blogosphere

Social media expert Matthew Hurst recently collected link data for six weeks and produced this plot of the most active and interconnected parts of the blogosphere.

We're in there somewhere!

The yellow number 5 on the left is supposed to be us:

No discussion of the blogosphere would be complete without a nod to online smut. This outlying island of blue represents the linked-up world of bloggers who traffic in the latest news and gossip from the world of pornography. Oh, yeah, and pictures.

Only a few of us link back in to the glowing white hub, which represents a truly boggling number of links and readers. I'm surprised the sex network isn't bigger. I dunno though, it's kind of nice out in our little outlying porn system. :)

sex work and the right to choose

I was recently fascinated to read this article, in which a sex worker ('Lara') tells her story in response to the recently-published "Big Brothel report" on non-street-based sex workers in London. This report lands at the same time as new legislation making it illegal to buy sex from a trafficked or exploited woman.

I am pro-choice when it comes to sex work. That doesn't mean that I don't think situations where choice is genuinely removed aren't horrific - of course they are. But all sex workers are often lumped in together as if they were incapable of consent - or as if it was impossible to consent to something so unpalatable as sex work. (It's worth noting at this point that the same attitude led to legislation making it illegal to consent to ABH. Of course consent is key and we all have personal choice and personal responsibility, but didn't you know that our consent isn't valid if it makes normal people feel uncomfortable?)

This interpretation is obscured by claims that the majority of sex workers in the UK are victims of trafficking or exploitation. This makes the issue nice and straightforward: of course trafficking and exploitation isn't okay, therefore clearly sex work isn't either.

But it's not that straightforward, and it's not true that most sex workers don't have a choice. For a start, it has been demonstrated that Julie Bindel's article in the previous paragraph indulges in exaggeration when talking about the figures of migrant sex workers (and migrant does not necessarily mean trafficked). There are no binary categories here: sex workers are not divided into kidnapped victims and Belle du Jour. For most people life is more complicated than that.

Lara's voice is just one voice from the broad range of experiences. Not all sex workers are their own boss, and not all of them have their own home. There is as broad a range of experience within the sex industry as within any other industry - retail, for example. Exploitation is a danger in any industry, particularly if you are from a marginalised or oppressed group. Very few people obliged to work long hours for little pay would choose to do so if they suddenly became rich and powerful. And yet generalisations about sex workers, painting them universally as victims incapable of making informed consent, abound.

I don't think Lara's story is representative of the majority of sex workers - it represents a point on a spectrum. But the more that spectrum is revealed, the better. The illegality and taboo nature of sex work has forced that spectrum underground: on the surface of society we are left with only the most misleading, sensationalistic generations about it. I applaud Lara for standing up and challenging those generalisations. The more voices are heard, the better.

Lara's story resonated with me, particularly when she described abandoning her soul-destroying, exploitative PA job to be her own boss. I can sympathise with that. I can tell you now, having just spent another two months giving it a go, that I find being a PA far more exploitative, unpleasant and oppressive than being a professional porn actress. For me, spanking modelling is a far better option.

I'm not a prostitute. I don't mean that to sound defensive - there'd be no problem if I was, but it would be misleading to put that name to what I do. But I am a sex worker, just as a stripper or a cam girl or a pro-domme is a sex worker. My business is getting people off - and because this is me, I try to do it as creatively and responsibly as possible. And, of course, to have as much fun as I can get away with while doing so.

So this is me, standing up and challenging those generalisations: I'm a sex worker, and I freely choose to be one. Don't try and tell me that choice is invalid, that I must be oppressed or desperate or exploited to consent to what I do. I have quite a range of options. This is the one that suits my temperament, my talents, my likes and dislikes best. It is a real choice, no less real than your choice to pursue whatever it is you do for a living. It is no less a real choice than my choice to be a self-employed designer, or writer, or artist or musician, or any of the other myriad ways I make money during the average year. If my choice to freelance as a web designer is my own then so is this choice. There is no coercion here.

I'm not saying it's an unproblematic choice. I live in an imperfect, patriarchal world, and of course it's not ideal that for a lot of women their highest worth is placed on their body. It's not ideal that young, educated, middle-class women who conform to patriarchal beauty standards have more options available to them than women who don't conform, or who are from oppressed groups. I'm not saying it's okay that vastly more women than men have the option of freeing themselves from wage slavery by making Lara's choice; and it's not okay that that imbalance arises from the objectification of women's bodies and sexuality through patriarchy. I'm not saying it's okay that single parents find it so soul-destroying or impossible to earn enough through socially-approved means that they have to seek risky, underground, illegal options. I'm not saying it's okay that so many workers are so underpaid and exploited, enduring such crushingly long hours and commutes, that selling sex seems like a more palatable choice.

And yet ... In a sense, Lara is more free than most people in this society. None of us are free, but she is at least empowering herself to the best of her ability within her range of options. The way our society structures work is completely dysfunctional. But it is not wrong or invalid, in this imperfect world, for Lara to make the choice she has, any more than it is wrong or invalid for a migrant person to take risks that compromise their safety in their desire to move to another country.

A migrant who ends up working as an underpaid, illegally hired kitchen cleaner is in danger from the law and at risk of exploitation. So is a migrant who ends up finding work as a prostitute. That's not to say that the passive victims of kidnapping and rape don't exist. But "coercion" is a complex issue, and not every "trafficked" woman is a hapless prisoner.



(This poster on "rescues" performed by law-enforcers on migrant sex workers illustrates the point poignantly and succinctly.)

What we have here is a spectrum, ranging from very poor or oppressed women living on the poverty line, with children or a drug habit to support, to Lara and Belle du Jour.

"Trafficking" does not only refer to hapless victims; it includes a range of people who are making complex choices in an imperfect world. Sex sellers are, for the most part, doing the same thing, and I don't think taking their livelihood away by making it illegal to employ them is going to help anyone.

My story doesn't trump the women in this country who are abused, exploited, or raped. My story does not invalidate the reality that a substantial proportion of sex workers in this country would do something else if they had better options. But even someone turning to sex work out of desperation is going to suffer if we take that option away from them too. And the invisible spectrum of people making complex choices, making the best choice they can, will have that choice compromised in the process.

I'm not deluding myself that all or most sex workers are happy hookers, who are as privileged as I am. But I think legalising and regulating prostitution, and offering increased structures of support to the whole spectrum of sex workers, is the best way of helping those who aren't.

Frederic Fontenoy

My friend J recently sent me this link, and I liked it so much I couldn't resist passing it on.

Frederic Fontenoy is a photographer. Specifically, he takes edgy, erotic, black and white photography of women in fetish heels and fully fashioned stockings, tied to beds, blindfolded, and being threatened with terrifying canes.



But there's a sense of the theatrical and the ridiculous to his work that makes it, inexplicably, even sexier. Or maybe it's just the effortlessly complex compositions, the perfect lighting.





And that's just from one gallery. The next one is even better - especially if you like animal play, enemas, corsets, single-tail whips, whole-body suspension, carpet beaters and body art.

Go, explore, enjoy.

back from reality

Hi! I'm back! At least, I'm not working at the Job of Doom any more, and am back in the self-employed saddle, making ambitious plans to start my own spanking paysite. Which I think means I'm going to be blogging regularly again. Hooray!

I'm not going to go into the many, many ways in which the Job of Doom was Of Doom, but suffice it to say I'm not going to be comfortable playing "evil boss bullies vulnerable secretary" scenes for a while. Turns out they aren't so hot in actuality. Especially when the evil boss is an insecure, wrong-headed, loudmouthed prick rather than someone with any sort of natural authority. He restrained himself to verbal abuse, and indeed if he'd tried to raise a hand to me he'd have got my stiletto heel sharply in the crotch, right before I stormed out of the building and phoned the police, but still. Power abuse in the workplace might be sexy in fantasyland, but I think office scenes can wait until I've recovered from the trauma of experiencing it for real.

Unless they're office scenes with sexy lady bosses. I might be able to cope with those.

The good news is that I've been offered a juicy freelance contract, so could hand in my notice to the Job of Doom safe in the knowledge that I wasn't going to starve. Or at least, that I wasn't going to have to fly to far-away countries to let strangers thrash and beat me in exchange for money to buy food. I mean, what kind of sick and depraved person would consider that okay?

No, I'm very lucky. It looks like I might survive the recession without starving or having to stay in shitty office jobs with awful bosses. Except, of course, that I'm still going to be flying to faraway countries and letting strangers (whom I'm reliably informed are lovely people) thrash me mercilessly. The fact that I get paid has only ever been the icing on the cake of this particular hobby of mine.

I'm tempted to illustrate this post with a picture from a boss/secretary scene now, but I'm worried it'll contradict my "Real office bullying = REALLY NOT HOT. No, not even a little bit. I'm not even kidding" statement. So have a totally unrelated picture instead, celebrating hot consensual spanking from a man I love. Which is definitely the best kind.