The Library of Spanking Fiction: Wellred Weekly


Wellred Weekly
Volume 1, Number 8 : June 3, 2012
 
Articles
Items of interest regarding all things spanking

That's Abuse!... or is it?
by Richard Windsor

A scene witnessed in a spanking video which I viewed a couple of years ago led me to consider the topic of abuse within spanking. When I first started in the wonderful world of online spanking back in 1999 I was always one of the first people to shout "Abuse. Abuse. Abuse!" whenever I witnessed or read about a scene that I did not enjoy. Even to this day there are times when I adopt a similar mindset, but over the years I have tended to develop a broader perspective. Throughout the years spanking has always meant one thing to me ever since I was a little boy: a naughty woman misbehaves, gets turned over the knee and is then spanked over her skirt, panties or bare bottom with a particular object ranging from the hand to a brush.

I won't bore you with minute details as I'm sure it's not necessary, but spanking for me was always to be done over the knee (or over a bed or couch) and never varied. No other scene really interested me. Even though I gave my first spanking in 1979, you could say my real spanking life actually started in 1999 online, and then in 2002 in person. So despite 30 years of experience I have only really grown and matured in the spanking world since 2002.

When I say 'grown' what I think I'm actually saying is that I have become more accepting of things but as the years have gone by I have also become more and more at ease with my own decisions in regards to what does it for me. After 25 years of living with a feeling of embarrassment in regards to spanking it took quite some time to be comfortable with myself and begin to explore what it is that I want. It may well be that whatever I did back in 1979 may be all that I want now but unless I give other ideas and thoughts a chance I will never know.

So what should be considered abusive in the adult spanking world and who defines such a thing? Just by the very nature of what we do, could anything be considered abusive, especially when 'non-consensual consent' has been given?

It's probably helpful to describe my own current standpoint in the spanking world. For many years I refused to use a cane or a belt due to my detachment from those items but as time went by I began to use those implements and quite honestly I now enjoy using them. Use of such implements I would consider to be at the top end of the scale for me. It took me a number of years to get there but who knows what my outlook may be in the future and what I might be comfortable with because my views may change yet again.

Typically, when I engage in spanking play it is what I could consider to be at the lower end of the scale, something along the lines of a basic naughty girl over the knee scenario. However, is that as far as I am prepared to go and the answer is no it isn't, not by a long shot. If I was to articulate just exactly what I would consider to be the pinnacle of, say a 4 hour play session, it would probably shock a lot of people. Much of what I would want to incorporate into that session would probably be considered abusive by some but just a regular play session to others. Currently, I'm not at that point in my life yet where I am comfortable with such thoughts, at least not so I would want to share them and it's possible that I may never be. Some fantasies may perhaps just stay that way right until the day I die. Then again, there may be some of those elements that I introduce into my life very slowly, bit by bit.

When I read Niki Flynn's wonderful book, Dances with Werewolves, it not only opened my eyes to a lot of what I had perceived to be abusive behavior but it also made me more aware of who I was as a person and what direction I wanted to go in. Initially, I had this fear about what I was going to read in regards to Niki's work with Rigid East but figured I could skim that part and enjoy the rest of the book. As it turned out though, pretty much the whole book is centered on Niki's time with Rigid East and quite frankly I couldn't get enough of it. The scenes themselves are probably still too harsh for me to watch but I completely understood where Niki's mind was emotionally during that time.

What reading the book taught me is that in regards to what I considered abusive behavior it was my own personal prejudices that were determining what constituted abuse for me. On reflection I think it is a cop out to use society's view to determine the benchmark for what constitutes abuse in our world. I believe it is ourselves who determine what is to be perceived as abuse, which is anything that we do not consider to be safe and sound based on our own life and experience. This is certainly true for me and earlier this year I was once again proclaiming abuse after watching a particular spanking video. Actually, I wasn't even able to watch it, merely pausing it at certain points and scanning through it. My perception was that the video was done simply to show how hard one person could hit another and to illustrate how much bruising they could inflict during that time-frame. But then what if the woman who was on the receiving end in the video had said something to the effect of "Hit me as hard as you can and make sure my butt is a deep purple afterwards", who was I to say that it is abusive just because it exceeded the boundaries of my own personal comfort level?

So, I think I have defined what for me constitutes abuse within the spanking world which is basically anything that I consider to be beyond my own comfort level. There are spanking videos which contain a lot of scenes that are far harsher than anything I have personally ever done, or ever will do, that I can nevertheless still thoroughly enjoy. However, it is at the precise moment where it goes beyond what I find enjoyable that I start to consider it abusive.

So for now I will continue to judge spanking videos and stories as being abusive simply because they have gone further than what my own personal prejudice level is comfortable with. Is there an absolute measure as to what should be considered abusive in our lifestyle? As long as both parties have consented to what is taking place (and are capable of consenting to it) then the answer for me is no, there is not. As the viewer of a spanking video I have my own level of tolerance - for a vanilla that may be one solitary smack to a clothed bottom but to a hardcore BDSM player it could be 100 full force strokes of the cane.




 
8 comments:
bendover said...
RW, I can see your point to most of what you've written. However, I believe what you perceive as abuse is actually what the spankee wants. Why would someone stay in a punishment position until their bottom is red and raw if it wasn't what they were looking for?

A person who would beat another person until they were wearing red and bleeding welts and internal under the skin bleeding, and a person who will take that type of punishment in my opinion are a fry short of a happy meal.

I don't like being judgmental, but that's the way I look at it from my standpoint. A person can only be abused that way only if they allow themselves to be. Once a person is tied or shackled during a session, they are fair game. I've seen these videos before and often wonder "Where the hell is the safe word?"

A good piece I might add. Thanks for sharing.

B
4 June 2012 04:20
PinkAngel said...
I think it is quite natural for people to judge certain things as wrong or 'abusive'. I think it can only be truly abusive if it is non consensual but I do know that I myself have several things that I find most distasteful and as such I find it hard to understand that for some others it is their need or desire. Interesting article thanks.
4 June 2012 11:37
AlanBarr said...
Very thought provoking. I'm not sure I agree with the idea that if both parties consent it cannot possibly be abusive. After all, there are people consenting all the time to do things to themselves which are not in their best interest (eg becoming addicted to drugs, commiting suicide, etc) and to aid and abet them in that desire would be be to act highly irresponsibly. However, I must admit can't think of any objective test to decide what is or is not abusive. I'd say the urge to spank/be spanked is an appetite just like eating, and it might not be healthy to take it to extremes. "Less is more" is a good adage in spanking and in life.
4 June 2012 15:16
qwazydog said...
A person can be abusive by taking advantage of the privilege of consent to inflict undue pain. They may know that the spankee won't stop the spanking no matter what. The spanker takes that as permission not to use their own good judgement.

The same can be said when safewords are used. Some feel free to do anything they want until a safeword is used. Many spankees feel it is a cop out to use the safeword. For my money, it is abusive to go overboard when they know the spankee won't use their safeword.

If someone wants to be beaten bloody, I don't think it is abusive, per se. I think both are crossing the line into nutbag territory.
4 June 2012 22:37
Februs said...
I thought this was a really thought-provoking article and I needed to take some time to arrive at my own viewpoint as I hadn't really considered the issue before. Having reflected, I think consent is not all that is needed in order for a spanking not to be classed as abusive. Many Tops or spankers, or whatever term one chooses to use, are more than capable of manipulating the would-be spankee into agreeing to something which otherwise they would not have consented to. And thinking back, I can recall many actual occurrences where male spankers have manipulated or skillfully influenced a woman they were intending to spank into agreeing to something she later regretted, and was to some extent at least, damaged by, either physically or emotionally or both. I think probably there is no simple black and white criterion to decide on what is abusive but that one has to take into account the specific circumstances each time, many of which may be unknown to us, especially in the case of viewing commercial spanking videos.
4 June 2012 23:18
TheEnglishMaster said...
An interesting article - thanks. I suppose I would say that abuse is defined by the one receiving - hence the importance of establishing ground rules and limits beforehand, and communicating clearly throughout.

Spankers who overstep the mark for their own short-term satisfaction, and through their lack of self-control or respect for the situation, do the whole community a disservice - that spankee might never feel safe to play again.
6 June 2012 00:57
TomHobbes said...
Interesting thoughts in an area I would find to be too difficult to parse without extensive psychiatric research/input. The problem is that abuse can find initiation in the abused. I have two daughters who were cutters and found some peace, joy, and satisfaction in slicing the flesh on their arms [and hiding it well from parents]. So the idea of consent goes out the window as a criterion of abuse in behavior. This is not unconnected, I would suspect, in some, if not many, of the practices we in the mainstream of spanking might find abhorrent. All that said, when you speak of adults who do not have mental deficiency consent should be one and probably the main element determining abuse. BUT we are not always masters of our own best interests. . . ..
6 June 2012 16:45
sixofthebest said...
Yes, each 'spanking enthusiast', has what he or she considers 'abusive ' limits. Also to be considered, spankings that are given tolerably in the 'mind', (fantasy's), and in 'real life', (actual). This varies, with each individual.
13 July 2012 22:48

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