Thanks for this - definitely the best of both worlds!!

Definitely good to hear both sides of the story! Thanks for the insight.

This is a fascinating and very well written account which helped me understand more clearly what being a switch really involves. Thank you.

Nope, I don't buy it. I'm perfectly happy with the POV of a spanker. :)

Thomas Bruns writes excellent stories. Check them out in the Library.

I hear you, Thomas. I've been at that point where I gave up some control just as you say, but there are those who like to play with (this is to make sure you can't get away) type scenarios. The rope, the cuffs, the straps. No, I would never - ever let anyone tie me up or down, and I don't care how well I know them. Just something I thought to mention.

The photo is a nice addition. Could this become an added feature at SL?

This is very interesting, I hope you get your wish fulfilled, wonk, wonk!!

A lovely paradox. I am probably a sympathetic top who prefers to be a bottom in some control of my top. At my age I am more of a coward of over-marking - not wanting to raise eyebrows,etc., at the gym or at home!

I like the way you've stated your feeling with regards to being on both sides of the punishing implement. I am also a male switch and have introduced a number of ladies to our beloved (yet needful activity). I have always followed the maxim that 'whats good for the goose is good for the gander' so that I make sure that after reddening my partners bottom, I go over their knees for my turn. I like to be totally restrained, however, and let my switching partner have her way with my bare behind. Oddly, almost all my partners end up liking to be on the giving end - happily, I like it best when they are in charge. Sorry for the long post,but I think being a switch is the only way to go. Thanks for stating your position - no pun intended.

I have been a switch for as long as I can remember and probably like being spanked a little more than spanking but not much.

After almost 30 years of marriage I finally brought up spanking to my wife and she surprised me by being willing to go along with my fetish.

For the first year we took turns spanking and both enjoyed really tanning each other with wooden paddles and an antique hairbrush (one mom used on me growing up), but since then it has become more one sided with my wife being the spanker and me over her knee kicking and bawling my eyes out as she truly blisters my bare behind with that dreaded hairbrush.

I still meet with others to switch, but at home I have become a very happy and very sore Bottom. Two to three times a month my naked behind ends up over my wife's lap and she never stops until well after real tears are flowing.

Very well said My feelings parallel yours exactly.

I agree with the general idea and benefits. Occasionally, people think that switches have 'multiple personalities'. I don't think that is true. They simply prefer more variety than some people.

Many people really don't understand Switches. This was thought provoking even for those of us who are one.
Normally, a person tends to lean further in one direction than the other. Even so, one advantage is that a Switch can identify to some extent with both sides.

As a switch myself, I understand your comments perfectly. However, for me it is an ABSOLUTE wall between being a Top or a Bottom in any given situation. ...so for ex. if I am the Top I will be the Top with that person forever (or until the dynamics might change years later) and the same thing for being the Bottom. I don't understand how a mind works that can change from minute to minute. Two friends of mine (a couple) are both switches and they can change between being Top and Bottom in a half-hour game. It is totally alien to me how anyone can change personality at a turn of a hand. I do envy that mind set, but I don't know how it works. Said that, I am so happy for anyone who can actually do and be both whenever it takes them 'fancy'.

This describes me exactly. Like swhotk below (but without the 30 year wait) I plucked up the courage to tell my vanilla girlfriend about early in our relationship and she surprised me by being both totally up for spanking me and willing to take even quite hard spankings, but we’ve long since settled down into a situation where she just punishes me. I’m glad it’s this way round, because though I certainly enjoy giving spankings I don’t have the same need for that as I do for being disciplined. I identify with the longing for a total loss of control but I’m not sure I actually want it to happen. It could be done with restraints but whenever we’ve tried that sort of thing I’ve found it close to unbearable even after just the first few strokes. Ultimately, what we do has to be consensual or it risks being seriously traumatic, and one way or another there is always the option of walking away. But with the trust we’ve built up over a couple of decades together we’ve now reached a point where it’s solidly accepted between us that she decides when a punishment stops, and that it really isn’t acceptable for me to overrule her - in practice this means she’s able to make me go well beyond my comfort zone when she chooses to, and I do get a strong sense of having surrendered control. I feel really lucky to have this because it matters hugely to me; the fact I don’t get to spank anyone doesn’t seem terribly important by comparison.