The Library of Spanking Fiction: Wellred Weekly


Wellred Weekly
Volume 2, Number 2 : August 19, 2013
 
Articles
Items of interest regarding all things spanking

Therapy? (cont.)
by Kaelah

Of course, the daddy-girl relationships are not the only ones with a permanent power dynamics. Forms of relationships which seem to be much more uncommon among our local friends, but about which I've read a lot in the online community are HOH (head of household), FLR (female led relationship) and 24/7 master-slave relationships. I don't have as much knowledge about the background of the people involved in these kinds of relationships, but what strikes me is that the submissives often describe certain similar-sounding needs.

Those are: the need for leadership in their lives, the need to be given rules and to be held accountable, the need to be helped with improving their behaviour and with getting rid of bad habits as well as the desire of being released from feelings of guilt when they don't manage to live up to their own expectations. What I've heard quite often as well is the wish to please their partner in return. I've read much less from people who are in charge in such a relationship, but it seems to me that what they seek often is caring for and helping another person, but also obedient behaviour and submission from their partner. So, it seems to me that the power dynamics in these kinds of relationships are quite similar to the one in daddy-girl relationships.

The next question then is in how far being in a relationship with a unidirectional power dynamics can successfully address the needs that are often mentioned by those involved? In my opinion that depends on how the dynamics is used by the participants. If "girls" / "boys" / submissives use the relationship to grow from it and to build up self-confidence through the knowledge that they have a daddy / mummy / master / mistress or HOH who loves and bolsters them, I consider that to be a good thing. And if the top gets something out of helping her or his partner to grow, I think that's a good thing as well.

There is another possible way of using that kind of power dynamics, though, and that is the form that comes close to something I have seen in the vanilla world and feel highly uncomfortable with. What I'm talking about is the combination of a bottom who doesn't want to grow up at all and a top who doesn't want a grown-up, equal partner, either. To my mind, this form of relationship is very unhealthy and can lead to quite horrible situations similar to the ones I've seen in my parents' and grandparents' generations, where one partner (usually the woman) completely depended on the other (usually the man) and was completely helpless in case something bad happened to that partner or in case the relationship went into a bad direction.

I don't think that the majority of the kinky relationships with a unidirectional power dynamics are of the second kind, though. Still, in my opinion the risk is there, and I've come across some descriptions about endless repetitions of the same potentially harmful behaviour by some submissives which they pretend to want to get rid of with the help of their dominant partner.

Of course, I'm only talking about my personal opinion towards certain aspects here and the question of how I evaluate a certain way of life. Growth and self-reliance are very important to me (for me, they are essential parts of life as a responsible adult) and I prefer to be among people who stand up for themselves.

But others might have very different needs than I have and everyone is of course entitled to their own lifestyle! However someone chooses to live their life or not, and regardless of how happy or unhappy it makes them or how well it works or doesn't work for them - it is their own decision and I wouldn't want to tell anyone how to live their life as long as their choices don't affect me.

That being said, I do take the freedom to voice critical thoughts about possible pros and cons of different lifestyles, in a careful and respectful way. The topic of relationships with a unidirectional power dynamics especially interested me because I hadn't seen any critical discussions about the pros and cons before. Instead, it often seemed to me that this type of dynamic was seen as a kind of holy grail among many kinksters. When I wrote about the topic on Ludwig's and my blog, though, some public and also private feedback showed that there seem to be more people who have made experiences with relationships of this form which they found problematic. But there were some who would rather talk about it in private than in public.

Obviously, there is a fear of generalising and of hurting people when talking openly about this subject. But while I absolutely agree that one must be careful not to make generalisations and not to judge others based on isolated experiences or mere gut feelings (this isn't about judging people, it's a critical discussion about lifestyle choices, anyway), I find it a bit sad that a completely open and honest discussion about this topic doesn't seem to be possible in our community.

I am aware that especially the question of kink and health is a sensitive question, but from my point of view it is also a necessary and important one. One criticism that came up when I first wrote about the topic on Ludwig's and my blog was that one couldn't make any assumptions about how kink works for others and about the healthiness of certain lifestyle choices. I think that one can make assumptions about what might or might not be healthy and under which circumstances, though, especially if these assumptions are based on actual statements of people who have experienced certain situations which they later considered either healthy or unhealthy for themselves.

Another question that came up was whether asking such controversial questions might cause prejudices against certain forms of kink or even against fellow kinksters. But, first of all, I have not said anything against fellow kinksters and I would not tell anyone how to live out their kink, either. All I did was discussing lifestyle choices critically which I deem a legitimate thing to do. Secondly, I also don't think that asking questions causes prejudices. Rather, I think that it gives us the chance to diminish them. After all, if different points of view are mentioned openly and honestly, people have a chance to learn about them and to adjust their point of view in case they come across arguments they hadn't thought of.

Which finally brings me back to the topic of kink and self-harm. In my original post on our blog, I also mentioned that, in contrast to my vanilla environment, I had come across several examples of people talking about or showing signs of self-harm in the kinky community. I asked the question whether this was just because we are more open about these things in our community than people usually are in our society as a whole or because of some general differences between my vanilla friends and the people I know from the kinky community or whether there might really be some kind of frequent correlation between the two.

As I already mentioned, I wasn't sure whether there was any further correlation between self-harm and kink at all. The only idea that I had was that spanking might cause a similar feeling of relief as self-harm does for some people and that it therefore could possibly be used as a healthy substitute for self-harming activities. One comment which I received seemed to support that idea because the commenter pointed out that while from her experience, self-harm and kink were based on very different desires, she could achieve the same kind of high and relaxation from both of them. But two other comments then gave a for me completely unexpected explanation for a possible correlation between kink and self-harm. The first commenter wrote about having used self-harm as a child, when she didn't know how to interpret her erotic masochistic desires, yet. And the second commenter had tried self-harm as a substitute at times when he didn't have the possibility to engage in spanking play with others.

Of course, these are just isolated personal experiences which don't allow any general conclusions. But I found these comments very interesting nonetheless. Although I had of course come across the topic of self-spanking, it never occurred to me that some self-harming experiences in the kinky community could be results of attempts to substitute erotic spanking experiences!

In my view, the chance of getting new ideas and insights like this one is worth the risk of writing about controversial topics / observations and the questions they raise. So, I hope that you didn't perceive my ideas and questions as judgemental or offensive, but as critical questions born out of a real curiosity about how kink works for others and for myself and about possible positive and negative outcomes of kinky experiences and lifestyles. I would love to hear about your own ideas and experiences!


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