The Library of Spanking Fiction: Wellred Weekly
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Articles
Items of interest regarding all things spanking
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Therapy? When erotic spanking or BDSM appears as a topic in a mainstream book or film, kink often gets directly or indirectly connected with self-harming behaviour like cutting or traumatic experiences. A famous example is the film Secretary whose main character Lee Holloway has some mental issues and is a cutter. She finally sort of overcomes her self-harming behaviour by finding release in the kinky relationship which she builds with her boss. While the kink itself usually isn't depicted as something harmful, the widespread connection that is made in mainstream portrayals between mental issues and spanking/BDSM can be both annoying and worrying for those of us who are into erotic kink. Therefore, some people tend to feel offended when either the question about the origin of our erotic kinks or the question about positive or potentially harmful effects of kinky play come up. I am of the opinion, though, that censorship is much more dangerous than open discussion about controversial and emotional topics. And I think that neither the question about the origin of kinkiness nor the question about positive and negative aspects of certain lifestyle choices are per se offensive or harmful. And so I would like to discuss such a controversial topic today which I have titled Therapy? My article isn't about the question whether kink originates in negative experiences, personal insecurities or potentially damaging behaviour, though. My question is not why a person becomes kinky in the first place. It's about the way we use our kink and our kinky relationships. So, it's not about the why but about the how. My concrete question is whether spanking and the frameworks of kinky relationships can be used and are used as a kind of "self-therapy" that helps people to cope with negative experiences, personal insecurities and even potentially damaging behaviour in a controlled manner. The second question, then, is of course whether there can be limits to that kind of "self-therapy" and whether kinky play or kinky relationships can even deepen certain problems or keep people from growing and effectively solving certain issues. Of course I am only talking about "self-therapy" in quotation marks, I don't want to imply in any way that spanking and kinky relationships can substitute a real therapy in case of, for instance, mental issues! Let me first give you an example out of my own personal kink: I am a switch and I love to be on both sides of a spanking with my partner Ludwig. When I am bottoming, one of my most central kinky fantasies is the one about the strong heroine. The heroine fantasies surely are some of the oldest fantasies I have. They don't even have to be connected with kink, but they can be. I'm very sure that I have developed these fantasies because, when I was younger, I often didn't feel very strong and self-confident. I always was very ambitious and I knew that I could achieve the things I dreamed of by working hard. But every time a new challenge came up, my initial hypothesis was that I could not do it. This did not keep me from trying, but always having to prove that my null-hypothesis was wrong cost me a lot of energy. That is why I often dreamed of being a heroine, someone who strongly believed in herself and always knew that she would find a way to make things happen. My self-confidence and self-trust have improved, but I'm still an emotional human being and can easily be scared or hurt. I've come to terms with my emotions and even see them as something positive now, but still the fantasy of the tough woman who takes new challenges without stomach ache holds a big appeal for me. That's why I love to make that experience in my kinky play when I take the challenge of a severe spanking. In contrast to many fellow spankos, I don't want to be pushed over the edge, though. Surviving isn't enough for me. Surviving is what I always did in my real life. Feeling strong throughout the challenge is what I was always longing for, which is why I aim for a kind of play that involves exactly the right balance of challenging me and at the same time always giving me the feeling that I am strong and that I can take it. In order to achieve that, I haven't got any problems with topping from the bottom. I only engage in the kind of play that works for me and I am the one setting the limits. Making sure that I don't overstep my personal limits is a very crucial task for me. Given that I didn't always respect my limits in the past, especially in my professional life, it is very important for me not to cross that line in my kinky play. My heroine fantasies carry a certain risk of becoming competitive, wanting to prove too much and as a consequence overstepping boundaries. Since I have a history with that kind of potentially damaging behaviour, I always try to make very sure that I don't fall into the same trap in my kinky play and instead really use it as a source of empowerment and a field that allows me to develop a better feeling for my own body and needs. In addition to my own personal kink, there are several other observations which I have come across in the kinky community that made me think about the issue of erotic kink and "self-therapy" as well. One is the desire of some fellow kinksters to play out very dark role play scenarios. I am always fascinated when reading accounts of that kind of play, knowing very well that due to my personal background and personality I couldn't participate in such a role play without getting hurt. Those who enjoy that kind of play seem to draw lots of energy from the experience of having survived a very dark and scary scene though, just like horror film fans do when watching a horror shocker. Facing scary situations in a controlled environment with trustworthy people and surviving those situations seems to give those involved lots of strength, not only directly after the scene but also for their day-to-day lives. In some cases there seem to be certain healthy limits for that kind of play as well, though, depending on the background of those involved. Many fellow kinksters whom I know indulge in very dark scenarios only from time to time, giving themselves breaks to recover from the experience. But I know at least one woman who eventually interpreted her tendency of getting involved in increasingly dark play scenarios as a self-destructive pattern and then turned away from that form of play. Another interesting aspect of kink which Ludwig and I don't share, but which I have seen in both our local community and the online community are kinky relationships that involve a permanent unidirectional power dynamics. What I mean when I'm talking about a "unidirectional power dynamics" is the following: First of all, I'm not talking about role play, where one person is always the top and the other always the bottom. I'm talking about relationships in which both partners have clearly defined roles which are (more or less) permanently valid, also beyond kink. Secondly, these roles have to be designed in a way that assigns one partner a leading responsibility while the other partner has a responsibility to follow their partner's advice and / or certain rules which have been agreed upon. And third, the leading partner holds the following partner accountable for misdeeds. A form that seems very common to me and which Ludwig has often come across in the local community is the daddy-girl dynamic. I'm well aware that lots of people only use that dynamic for role play scenarios, but there also seem to be many couples for whom this is a permanent part of their relationship. From my observation, these relationships tend to be between rather young women and men who usually are at least a few years older than their partner. Several of the women I know who are in such a relationship admit that they don't feel like adults (yet) and that they are looking for someone to protect them and care for them. Someone who is older and wiser and can teach them things about life. And someone they can call whenever things are getting rough and who will, like a friend aptly called it, "jump in on his white horse, wearing his shining armour, and go to tilt at windmills". Ludwig has made the observation that, in his view, many of the women he knows from the local scene seem less self-reliant and less adult than the average woman their age. Another observation we both made, when listening to stories about their background, is that many of the women seeking this form of daddy-girl relationship apparently did not have a caring father figure during their childhood and deeply missed that experience. From my observation, there seem to be certain types of tops that are involved in daddy-girl relationships as well. I've got the impression that often the men in these relationships seem to seek not only the feeling of being loved, but also the feeling of being needed, of being looked up to and of being superior to their partner concerning life experience and knowledge. These observations for me bring up the question whether both parties use the power dynamics of their relationship to deal with certain insecurities and/or to get things which they missed earlier in their lives. That idea is supported by the fact that I have seen a number of women outgrow this form of relationship eventually, which usually led to a breakup. While the women, from what I have seen, then usually looked for a more equal partnership, it seems to me that the men involved often found it more difficult to cope with the end of the relationship and tried to overcome the loss by looking for a new "girl" to care for. continued...
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