Rites of Passage

In my Christmas post last year, I wrote that I hadn't really celebrated Christmas since I was a child. Being an agnostic, my habit as an adult was to simply have a nice dinner on the evening of the 24th.

Well, now that I am happily involved with Kaelah, that has changed quite a bit - like so many other things in my life. She is one of those pesky Christians. [At least I have made my decision instead of being stuck in the middle.] Even though she's pretty cool as Christians go. [Most of the Christians I know are pretty cool.] Also, Kaelah is more family-oriented than me (coming to think of it, 99% of the population are more family-oriented than me...). [No comment!] So Christmas this year was rather more extensive than what I'm used to. [Just trying to save your soul.] It was nice enough, but I'm still recovering. [And I already spared you a part of the Christmas-related appointments and responsibilities. Christmas light for newbies, as I would call it...]

On the plus side, because of Kaelah's charitable influence [Do I sense a subtle ironic undertone here?], you are getting not just one, but two Christmas presents this time. The early one was a picture and a write-up from one of our recent play sessions. And now, as the late one, we bring you the long-awaited account of the very first time we ever played. I've been promising you the full story ever since first introducing Kaelah, and after numerous delays [A certain someone is the king of procrastinators!], we were finally able to do it as a Christmas gift for you.

One of the reasons why we took so long is that we wanted to give you both perspectives, so we worked together on the whole thing. [Read: Ludwig wrote his account and then generously allowed me to add some comments.] My majestic monologue is in the normal text format, and Kaelah is going to make some annoying interruptions using bold text in square brackets. [First of all, I'm not making annoying interruptions. I'm just adding the zest that turns good food into a delicacy. Secondly, I'm quite sure that they already got the bracket thing, Ludwig.] Predictably, because we are both so powerfully eloquent [Some would call us verbose smart asses!], the write-up ended up being a wee bit longer than planned. [As I already predicted days ago.] Instead of doing it in one post, we're doing it in three. However, they will come at shorter intervals than usual.

Without further ado, the tale of Kaelah's first ever spanking... [Don't worry, we won't really get to that part in the first post!]

Losing one's spanko virginity is such a Big Event. For most of us, it is bigger and more life-changing than losing our "vanilla" virginity. It certainly was for me. [Yes, I agree. Although today I'm of the opinion that, with the right partner, “vanilla” sex can be almost as ... ahem ... satisfying as a good spanking.] The same weighting of importance applies for me when it comes to the helping-to-lose part: I never obsessed over "deflowering" a girl (an ugly term, in my view!), the way many men apparently do. [That said, you didn't seem too unhappy at the time it was due to happen...] However, being the first to spank a girl was an idea that held immense appeal, both as an erotic fantasy and in terms of more general values and emotions. Being the first to chastise her with the dreaded cane, my favourite implement, was an alternate fantasy that seemed almost as good.

If you asked me to state, in one simple sentence, what I really want as a top (in private play, not in filmmaking mode), I would say: "To give a special experience to the spankee." Well, what more special and memorable experience could you possibly give someone than their first ever spanking? Conversely, what greater gift could you receive than the trust that you are the right one to administer it? Granted, not all first spankings take place after such careful considerations (in other words, not everyone is a perfectionist control freak like Kaelah and me). [Perfectionist? Control freak? Me?] But many do, and there is something romantic about the idea.

First times are life-changing, but not always in a good way. They are delicate moments. A lot of potential joy can be ruined, or even worse, a lot of long-term damage can be done if things go wrong somehow - if it turns out that that you were with the wrong person after all, or if the circumstances are not what they should have been. So, giving someone their first spanking is also a challenge for the top. As the top, even more than usual, you want everything to be just right, just about perfect. You want to reward the trust that has been given to you.

In several years of exploring my kink, I had done quite a few things already. I had played as a top and as a bottom, I had corresponded with and met various people, I had started the blog, I'd had a play relationship with Josephine, I had shot video clips with Niki Flynn. But I had never helped anyone to lose their spanko virginity, or even their virginity with any particular type of implement (the one downside of being friends with veteran kinksters like Niki is that you are unlikely to ever be first at anything...). I admit that, whenever I read exuberant stories about "my first spanking" or "my first caning" in the blogosphere, I felt a surge of envy for the top. Envy is my favourite deadly sin, anyway.

Then, in the last days of 2008, Kaelah sent me her wonderful "looking for unknown top x" mail (see Where No Man Has Spanked Before for the full quasi-mathematical breakdown). She wrote that her resolutions for the new year included getting her first spanking, that she had decided to definitely try it for real - and that she wanted to get to know me in person, because she felt that I was probably the right x for the task. [You wouldn't believe how nervous I was after I had sent that mail. Usually, I don't ask complete strangers to meet me and to introduce me to any kind of sexual practise. Thinking about it, I'm quite sure that most people don't do that very often, right?] Predictably, I was delighted at the delicious prospect. From our previous correspondence, it was clear that Kaelah was a smart, interesting girl, a fellow science fiction geek, and judging from the photographs she had attached once, also quite attractive. Being the one to initiate her, of all people, was an even hotter fantasy than usual.

But more than excitement or gleeful anticipation, I just felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility. Above all, I was flattered by Kaelah's trust and openness. I wanted to be absolutely sure, probably even more than she herself, that it was justified. I was going to meet her, and if I had any doubts that I was the right guy, I would back out. Rare as these opportunities might be, I was going to do what was good for Kaelah and place my self-interest strictly below that. [Believe me, I did everything one could possibly do to make sure I would be choosing the right guy for the job. Okay, I am a control freak! Remember the control phone calls I got from my family and friends when we met for the first time?! ;-)]

When you accompany someone through their first spanking experience, you are faced with one dilemma to begin with: to a certain extent, you have to give contradictory impulses. On the one hand, you have to try and take all the self-applied pressure away from the spankee and make them feel comfortable. All the more so with someone like Kaelah, who is Ms. Self-Applied Pressure personified. [Hey, I'm already so much cooler and more relaxed than I was ten or fifteen years ago! You should ask my former classmates how I look like under real self-applied pressure...] I would reassure her that there was no hurry and no foregone conclusion, that she should take her time to think everything through, and that it would be perfectly alright if she changed her mind at any time before or during the spanking.

At the same time, I would point out that, if she really wanted to find out, then sooner or later, she would simply have to make the jump - with me or someone else. You can prepare, plan and deliberate, you can build self-confidence and trust, you can listen to the stories of others for months or even years. But ultimately, there are no guarantees and you just have to try it for yourself one day. Only then will you know whether you like spanking and CP for real, whether the reality matches fantasy. Careful preparation is all fine and necessary, but one mustn't fall into the trap of eternal postponement, as some would-be-spankees do. [Hmmm, I think about eight months between reading about the concept of erotic spanking for the first time and trying it for real isn't too long, is it?]

When Kaelah and I met for the first time, I spelled out these contradictory advices to her, and why I felt that they were both sound. We also heeded them in practice: we talked about potential scenarios, implements, limits and so on in concrete terms, because I wanted to get to know Kaelah's preconceived fantasies, insofar as they existed, in as much detail as possible. At the same time, we only spoke in the subjunctive mood, because that made it all a bit less daunting for her. "If we were to play together, what would we do?"

So, we established that - if we were to play together! - some kind of "initiation ritual" would probably be the best way to go. Without actual role-play, but with the two of us being ourselves in front of a ritualised, festive backdrop. [Yeah, that conversation was really strange! Can you imagine how it feels like to have a man whom you just met for the first time sitting on your couch and asking you for what exactly you would like to be punished? ;-) That question was the weirdest one you asked me because I suddenly realised that I didn't want to be punished at all. I just wanted someone experienced at my side to lead me through my first spanking.]

We established that Kaelah was especially curious about the cane, which pleased me a great deal, even though I was too discreet to say it aloud at the time. [Yes, the cane. It looked so elegant, but after all I had read about it I wasn't sure whether I could take even a single stroke.] And we established that she didn't have a problem with nudity. "Getting it on the bare is the whole point of a spanking, isn't it?" she said, and when I asked whether she could imagine being fully nude, she added: "Possibly... After all, I go to the sauna!" I thought that was a droll reply.

[Well, actually I didn't want to be spanked on the bare only because it was such a hot fantasy. I never thought about doing it with the clothes still on because I thought it would be much safer, especially for an inexperienced bottom, if the top could see the marks and possible damage. And the question about full nudity caught me flat-footed! Then I thought about the sauna and that being nude in front of others was something completely natural there. So, why not? Actually, since it was one theoretical question among many others, I didn't expect you to go that far right at the first time, anyway. Yes, I am a bit naïve sometimes!]

Fundamentally, we found out that the personal chemistry seemed to be fine. A few weeks later, Kaelah repaid my visit and came to Munich, where she wanted to get to know me in my "home environment". We talked some more and the initiation ritual idea began to take a more concrete shape. "Do you want me to stop talking in the subjunctive?" I asked her. She smiled and shook her head: "No, keep it for the time being..." [I already had some very concrete ideas in my mind at that point. But I remember that it was still strange to tell you about them because while there already was a quite detailed scene in my head I still wasn't 100 per cent sure whether I was ready to try it for real.]

Later on, Kaelah showed me some Tai Chi exercises with a martial arts-type folding fan she had brought along. She was extremely graceful and the performance seriously tested my professional, unselfish detachment. Damn it, I thought while I sat there watching, wouldn't it be a pity if she decided to back out after all this? I couldn't keep my mind from wandering off and picturing how great she would look bent over [with all the distracting clothes removed], for the cane.

As it turned out, Kaelah decided to go ahead. We exchanged some more emails, fixed the last details of our chosen scenario and targetted late February for the date. If everything worked out as planned, Kaelah would start a new occupation then, one that required responsibility and leadership skills. So it made sense to schedule our spanking initiation ritual around the same time - it paralleled the other development in Kaelah's life, gave the ritual a sort of grounding in reality, and provided us with a definite time frame to prepare for.

Then, the new occupation failed to materialise. It was no fault of Kaelah's and she wasn't even very disappointed in the end, except for the fact that we had lost the "real" background for our play. However, as she told me on the phone that evening: "We will do it, anyway. I'm not calling it off now!" It was one of those cases where you plan to do something one way, you end up doing it another way - and somehow, with hindsight, it all fits together.

[That was an interesting development. At first I needed that real-life event as a kind of fortune wheel to take the final decision on when to make the jump away from me. “If and when the new occasion comes that'll be the time to perform the ritual and I won't have any excuses to back out...” But when the situation changed I realised that I already had made up my mind and didn't need any event to confirm my decision any more. The train was running and there was no way to stop it...]

(to be continued)

An Early Christmas Present

Ever since 2006, Abel and Haron give out the annual Spanking Writers Awards to honour their personal favourites in the kinky community (and a few more in the wider vanilla world). I just found out that Kaelah and I are among the winners this year, in the newly created category Most Romantic Blog Story. In the words of Abel and Haron: "Just great to see a spanking blog bringing such lovely people together." Moreover, the Best Spanking Video award went to A Garden Party by Lupus Pictures - it seems as if my guest role as Hans the Dragoon was not enough to deter the jury.

Many thanks from Kaelah and me for this early Christmas present. We feel happy, proud and thrilled. Head over to The Spanking Writers to find out all the 2009 winners. And in case you haven't done so already, you can read the most romantic blog story of the year and the Garden Party BTS report right here on Rohrstock-Palast...

Speaking of Christmas presents, here is another early one from the two of us to all of you: the first fully nude photograph of Kaelah to be published on the web.

What? I wasn't talking about full frontal nudity! And you have to say, those cane stripes on her derrière are just lovely.

The picture (and the marking) is the result of a session we had a couple of weeks ago. There was no role-play involved, neither was it a punishment for anything "real" [note from Kaelah: we are past the point where we always have to find excuses for a spanking]. It was simply a caning for its own sake, which ended up being a fair bit longer and harder than either of us had originally planned, because the stubborn girl insisted on being extra-brave [note from Kaelah: Klingons don't whimper!].

It started out as a casual trying out of a new cane, a very thin and flexible kooboo specimen, which I had never used on Kaelah before. I gave her twelve moderate strokes with that one, not too light, not too hard. Then another twelve moderate ones with a dragon cane - I don't care much for dragon canes myself (too rigid), but I wanted to show the direct contrast between the heavy, blunt implement and the lighter, sharper one. We were cruising along nicely by this point and as the saying goes, all good things are three, so we decided to do yet another dozen, with a regular rattan cane which Kaelah already knew well. It's my favourite type and falls between the other two in terms of size, rigidity and sensation. The strokes I dished out were somewhat harder this time, gradually increasing in force, and quite hard by the end.

I was about to end the session there, when Kaelah asked me if the last couple of strokes had already been Mood-style severity. "Not quite..." I replied, and instructed her to stand in a different position, in a different part of the room where I had more space to swing. I then gave her another four with the rattan cane, pretty much full force. Three times twelve plus four equals 40, which would be a nice round number to stop. Kaelah gasped and winced under the Mood-style strokes, a little more than previously, but she was still remarkably resilient. "Call me crazy," she said afterwards, "but they were almost easier to bear, because they feel more blunt somehow..."

"So, you want more, then?" I quipped, mildly incredulous by this point. The reply was silence. I operate by the ground rule that silence denotes agreement (except in cases where it obviously doesn't), so I positioned myself anew and took aim: "Alright, we'll make it a full 50!" I added ten final strokes, once again, at full force. It was my first time wielding a cane with such ferocity since my visit to Hungary ("A Garden Party" had been quite a bit lighter). More gasping and wincing from Kaelah, and I managed to elicit a strained "Mein Gott!" through clenched teeth one time, followed by "Shit...!" after another stroke. But she remained very, very brave. They were magnificent reactions, neither hysterical nor stoic, suppressed but not totally silent, never losing her grip, but clearly struggling. The sadist in me and the admirer of brave girls were both pleased. As was Kaelah, when she saw how immensely content I was afterwards. After some hesitation, she even went as far as calling her reactions "acceptable" (which wins the 2009 Rohrstock-Palast Award for Understatement of the Year).

Unplanned as it was, it turned out to be the most extensive caning we had done to date, because we both suddenly found that we wanted to push the limits a bit. It wasn't Hungarian-style, but getting close. The kind of session that you don't do very often. Before I fetched the arnica ointment, we took some pictures to commemorate the occasion. Among them the early Christmas present which you can see here.

Now, we're off to finish our work on your proper Christmas present - yes, there's another one in store. It should be ready for posting on the evening of the 24th, when the Germans celebrate. If not, we'll adopt the UK tradition this year and we'll postpone it for a day. Look for it around that time.

[Edit: I'm running a little late. Kaelah and I are having a busy Christmas. The new target date is the 26th. Well, at least it's symmetrical that way - you get one early Christmas present, and one that is late!]

Website Review: Real Spankings Institute

As you can easily guess, Real Spankings Institute is a sister site of Realspankings, the famous American CP site created by Michael Masterson aka Mr. M. I already reviewed their "flagship" earlier this year. The Real Spankings Institute, or RSI for short, features videos with a very similar style, many of the same participants, and a girls school theme added on top. It is well worth a visit in its own right - I remember first subscribing to it years ago, I came back after a long break for the purpose of this critique, and I still like what I see. Some of the best work in the RS network can be found here.

The site is divided into sections like "Classroom", "Dorm Room", "Detention Room", "Library", and so forth, each of which has videos in a different setting, a different part of the "building". New residents receive their welcome (and their first RSI spanking) in the "Arrivals" section. The "Dean's Office" shows Mr. M himself in action, while the "Coach's Office" is inhabited by Mr. Daniels, another well-known spanker from the network. The "Dorm Mom's Office" used to be run by Lady D, who is now retired. Today, Ms. Burns and Ms. Baker have taken over her duties.

Alternatively, you can find the videos you want to see with the help of a search function, and I think that this is how most members will actually end up navigating the site. You can search by section, by model, by implement, by position (OTK, bent over, kneeling on a chair, etc.), and with combinations of these filters. It's a nice feature and becoming pretty commonplace on older sites like RSI, where large amounts of content have to be made easily accessible. There is also an alphabetical "Model Index", and a big "Updates" list that includes all the scenes ever posted from the inception of the Institute to the present date.

There are more than 60 models on the site at the time of this writing - most of the ones who stay with Realspankings for more than one or two shoots make a visit to the Institute sometime. Old fan favourites like Bailey, Brandi, Claire, Jennifer, Jessica, Kailee and Monica have all done a lot of work here. I used to be infatuated with Donna and Kathy, two girls who did some nice clips back in the early days. There are interesting new models as well: Mr. M seems quite taken with Lila, and she looks promising indeed. Not just very pretty, but also highly enthusiastic about filming and getting spanked, apparently. Keagen is another relative newcomer. She has her own blog, which is worth a read.


The archive goes back to 2003, and if my calculation is correct (86 pages on the list, with 12 entries each), RSI has just passed the 1,000 scene mark. The girls are punished for all the usual infractions - sleeping late, goofing off, drinking, obscenities, writing in a book, snooping around the teacher's lounge, and so on. Most scenes are between 5 and 10 minutes in length, a bit shorter than the industry standard. Nonetheless, there is a fair amount of lecturing to go along with the action. RSI usually show the spanking from different angles, with one clip focusing on the buttocks and another on the facial reactions.

The hand, the leather strap and various paddles are the most common implements, but occasionally, you can also see a crop, switch or birch in action, which one wouldn't necessarily expect in light of the school theme. Canings are also fairly frequent, even though they are (unsurprisingly) somewhat rarer than on many European sites. In terms of severity, the average scene is middle of the road - some are lighter, some are pretty hard. There is M/F and F/F action, there are one-on-ones and punishment sessions with more than two participants. Picture galleries are available alongside the clips. All in all, Real Spankings Institute offers a good amount of content and nice variety.

All videos are in Real Media format, the older ones at 350 or 450 kb/s, the newer ones at 700 kb/s. This is my only significant complaint about RSI (and about the main site, Realspankings): in this day and age, .rm files with these kinds of bitrates are simply not up to standard anymore. Now that we are about to enter the year 2010 and more and more spanking sites are starting to offer high definition, Michael Masterson would be well-advised to upgrade the video quality by a step or two. All the more so because the camerawork itself is fine - it would be nice to see these scenes in their full visual glory.

Even in its present from, though, Real Spankings Institute remains one of the better sites on the web. And its future looks quite interesting: according to Mr. M's blog, material with the Coach and Ms. Burns is being phased out, and new spankers will be introduced, including an assistant dean. They also recently tried out some judicial punishment-type spankings, voyeur spankings, and a scene where a boy and a girl are punished together ("Monica sneaks a boy into her dorm room"). The latter, in particular, should find plenty of fans, given what a common female spanko fantasy it is, and how rarely you see it for real.

The Klaasohm Festival

Do you remember last year's Night of the Krampus post? I wrote about the tradition of St. Nicholas Day, which the Germans and other central Europeans celebrate in early December. That one is, of course, interesting for us spankos because of the Krampus, the birch-equipped helper creature of St. Nicholas. In the post, I also mentioned that I want to go to one of the Krampus processions in Bavaria or Austria someday, "maybe next year". Watching brave, intrepid young women being chased around by (and getting a few playful lashes from) the local lads dressed up in these silly costumes, well, that certainly sounds like loads of fun.

Alas, I didn't make it this year. It would have been awesome to go there with Kaelah, but we're both pretty busy at the moment. As for me, I've been doing academic work, and answering kinky emails on the side - I still have a backlog of stuff that piled up during my recent break from blogging. There were 71 mails in the beginning, and while not all of them warranted a long and detailed reply, some did. It adds up to a lot of work. I'm not complaining, mind you. I enjoy the correspondence. Just don't expect an instant reply. Anyway, I'm done with most of the backlog now, so my response time is getting better again. The academic paper is coming along nicely, too. As for the Krampus processions, they will have to wait until 2010.

Speaking of emails, though, and speaking of local traditions, here is something that should interest you: the Klaasohm Festival in Borkum. Never heard of it? Neither had I, until one of my German readers mentioned it to me. She's from the North Sea coast, pretty much the opposite end of the country from where I am. To us landlocked Bavarians, the sea is an alien and mysterious entity, and so are the people who live near it. We affectionately refer to them as "fish heads" or "shell kickers", and they refer to us as... Well, you don't want to know! But seriously, all joking between northerners and southerners aside, I would love to go to the North Sea coast someday. I've heard many stories about how beautiful it is (the Wadden Sea was recently placed on the Unesco World Heritage list), the locals are supposed to be very hospitable and friendly, and now that I know about the Klaasohm Festival, I have one more incentive to travel there. Thank you, Katja, for your email!

I think I can be forgiven for not having heard about Klaasohm before. It's a tradition that seems to be virtually unknown outside of Borkum, where it originated. I only found one single English-language source on Google, a "Destination Germany" information site that devoted half a sentence to it, and even the number of German sources is insignificantly small compared to the thousands of websites dealing with the history of St. Nicholas Day. In other words, ladies and gentlemen, I'm really breaking new ground here. The historian in me is delighted. I just hope that the Tourismus Marketing Gmbh of Lower Saxony is equally happy about the results appearing on a BDSM blog, if they ever discover them!

So, what is this Klaasohm thing? The name is a combination of "Ohm", the old German word for "uncle", and "Klaas", which refers to St. Nicholas. Literally, it is the "Uncle Klaas Festival", and it is a regional version of St. Nicholas Day celebrated in Borkum, a coastal island in the North Sea. Borkum is the westernmost inhabited island in the German East Frisian island chain, right on the sea border with the Netherlands. It has a population of 5,300 and is mostly known as a holiday and health resort these days.

There is no consensus among historians about where, exactly, the Klaasohm Festival came from, but it seems to have originated during the era of the whale hunts, between 1700 and 1780, when most men from the island made their living as sailors aboard Dutch whaling ships. Like the rest of East Frisia, Borkum is predominantly Protestant and doesn't have any other festivals for saints. The theory goes that the sailors brought the tradition of St. Nicholas from the Netherlands. Known as "Sünterklaas" in Dutch, he became "Klaasohm", Uncle Klaas, in the tongue of the people of Borkum. Among other things, Nicholas of Myra is venerated as the patron saint of sailors, which helps to explain his popularity in the region. Klaasohm is celebrated on the evening of December 5th, around the same time as St. Nicholas Day in the rest of Germany. It combines Christian elements with various local, and perhaps older, traditions. Such as "driving evil spirits into the sea" with noise from horns and drums, and other sailor's superstitions.

Here is what happens during the festival. Like I said, these northern affairs are deeply mysterious to me as a Bavarian, so I hope I was able to piece everything together correctly from the articles I found: six young, unmarried men from the island dress up as Klaasohms. Yes, there are several of them! Their identity is kept secret. Even the men themselves, who are all members of the Verein Borkumer Jungens (the Borkum Boys Club, basically), are only told at the last minute who gets to be a Klaasohm this year. After dressing up in their costumes, the six Klaasohms and their helpers meet at the hall of the local railway, where they hold boxing and wrestling matches. Women, tourists and the press are excluded from this part of the event - only men from Borkum are allowed to watch. In the ritualised fights, it is determined who will take the leadership during this year's festival.

The costumes are worth mentioning in their own right. To hide their faces and their identities, the Klaasohms wear masks. Because the islanders didn't have much suitable material, these masks are made out of parts from the two most common animals of the region: sheep and seagulls. So, the Klaasohms are walking around with barrel-shaped "helmets" on their heads that are up to three feet in height, wrapped in sheepskin rugs and decorated with seagull feathers (sometimes entire wings from seagulls). How you can have a boxing match dressed up like that is beyond me, but hey, I'm basically a mountain dweller compared to these people, so what do I know... In any case, it doesn't bear much resemblance to the usual Santa Claus costume, that's for sure!

The Klaasohms can hardly see a thing behind their huge, cumbersome masks, so they have helpers who lead them through the streets during the subsequent festive processions. Once the ritual fights are over, they parade through the streets of the town with their comrades, making lots of noise to drive the evil spirits away, visiting all the pubs and private residences along the way - and spanking girls. This is where it gets interesting for us.

(The harpooning of a whale.
Copper engraving by Adolf von der Laan, 18th century.)

This part of the tradition goes back to the whale hunting days as well. The sailors were away at sea for months at a time, and when they returned home in the autumn season (sometimes, fittingly, as late as December), they discovered to their horror that the women had taken over the reins in the families and didn't want to subordinate themselves anymore. So, the men had to reestablish their authority. It is claimed that the spankings during today's Klaasohm Festival go back to this "reconquest" of the island from the women. Some historians argue that this doesn't make sense, because the Klaasohms were always unmarried young men - they believe that the whole thing has another source, perhaps ancient fertility rites. Does it really matter? The scholar in me may care about such distinctions, but the spanko doesn't. Regardless of their origin, be it male reconquest or fertility rites, the spankings are his favourite part of the festival.

Again, the men dressed up as Klaasohms are too visually impaired to do much running around, so they rely on their helpers to do the chasing. Once the helpers have caught a young female who was careless (or foolhardy) enough to get close to the procession, they bring her to the Klaasohm and she gets her bottom thrashed - with a cow's horn! Well, they don't seem to be squeamish in their choice of implements, these whale hunters. A German website I found advises: "Girls, be on your guard! The cow horn is still standard equipment for every Klaasohm." Later on, it describes the results of such encounters during the festivals of earlier years: "Often, tears flowed, and sometimes the blue and red welts had to be treated soothingly at home." Not too squeamish, no. The website leaves open whether or not the Klaasohm spankings of today are still that hard. One never knows! I just thought I should mention it to those kinky female readers of mine who are, by now, thinking of going to Borkum as a tourist.

Maybe next December? In the meantime, the whole Klaasohm tradition certainly makes for a nice erotic fantasy. And since we are living in such enlightened, emancipated times today, you can change it around if you like: there is nothing that prevents you from imagining a bunch of female whale hunters taking back the island from their men who stayed at home, if you are into F/M scenarios. I'm all for gender equality, as you know.

Before I close for today, I should mention that the women who had to endure swats from the Klaasohm receive "Moppe" afterwards, a kind of honey cake. So it's not all bad! Oh, and at the very end of the festival, a big crowd gathers on the central square of Borkum, the six Klaasohms climb on top of a tall advertising column that is located there, and then, one by one, they jump off the column into the arms of the crowd.

Sheepskin helmets, spankings with cow horns, and now stage diving? It sounds like these shell kicking northerners really have us Bavarians beat when it comes to St. Nicholas Day...

Kaelah's Corner (Nov 2009): Open Your Mind

Everything has got it's time in life -
use that time wisely
and never forget
that the definition of our lives
is our mortality;
and nothing lasts forever.

This post is about Ludwig's and my relationship – how it began, how I became his mate and what having a partner means to me today. I'm going to split the post into two parts again. Today's post describes the development of our relationship from my perspective. Part two is going to be about what being mates means to me in general and how the two of us are living that concept today.

I met Ludwig at a point in my life when I had already gotten used to the thought of not finding a man to share my life with. I had been single for many years and there didn't seem to be a high possibility for a change any time soon. So, I had made plans for a family life without a partner and felt quite happy with the ideas I had for my future. Although I never denied the fact that having the "full package" would be the ultimate best way of living – at least from my point of view. But being single to my mind was still preferable over living together with someone who didn't really fit and whom I wasn't truly in love with.

There were a lot of necessary and sufficient conditions at the back of my mind which had to be fulfilled by a possible candidate. Being an INTJ, I simply didn't fall in love with someone who didn't match my requirements. "You'll never find a partner unless you scale down your expectations", that's a sentence I've heard more than once in my life. But that was something I couldn't really control. Hey, it's not like I made an explicit benefit analysis every time I met a new guy and decided not to fall in love with him in case the final score was below my expectations. But something like that happened implicitly and I simply didn't develop any stronger feelings for most of the men I met – with very few exceptions from that rule. I had learned to trust my intuition and somehow knew that my feelings would tell me if I came across the one I was looking for. And they did!

By the time I had developed a plan for my future I felt comfortable and happy with, I started exploring the internet on the topic of spanking. In addition to the personal development I had made at that time, the fact that I had stopped taking the anti-baby-pill which I had taken for many years (for medical reasons, not for contraception, obviously) might be one of the reasons why I started my exploration right at that time. Actually, with hindsight, I was quite shocked about how much the pill can sometimes suppress natural female desires...

So I made the decision to take some time to explore that part of me before I would go on with the other things I had planned to do. At first I read a lot of spanking stories. A little bit later I found the spanking clips on Spanking Tube. It was a fascinating new world for me and I spent quite a lot of time in front of my computer for several weeks. One day I stumbled across one of Ludwig's clips on Spanking Tube and followed the link to his blog. I started reading the blog regularly, being fascinated especially by the philosophical ramblings and the accounts of Ludwig's personal kink-related activities.

During the following weeks there was a growing impulse inside me to write a comment and to get into contact with Ludwig. However, since I didn't have any practical spanking experience and didn't know any other spankos personally, I didn't feel qualified for commenting on that topic. In addition, I didn't feel comfortable writing in English. So I fought an inner fight – until the Day of Delurk. When I read Ludwig's Day of Delurk-post I knew that this was what I had been waiting for. I wrote my little delurk post, crosschecked the grammar and vocabulary about ten times and finally hit the "Publish your comment"-button. Some days earlier I had already decided on the nickname I wanted to use – should I ever write a comment or become a member of one of the spanking forums. So at least that question had already been resolved beforehand.

In his next post, Ludwig wrote how happy he was about all the comments he got on the Global Day of Delurk. He especially mentioned the two „real“ delurkers who hadn't posted a comment on a spanking blog ever before – Rachel and me. This encouraged me to take the next step and write him a personal mail. Again, something I had never done before (not writing mails generally, but writing a personal mail to a stranger). At that time I already had a very strong feeling that Ludwig might be my key to the world of spanking. And there was another vague gut feel which told me that maybe, just maybe, he could even be more than that. Considering how I am wired this was absolutely strange. But the intuition was so strong that I just followed it.

And then – nothing happened. I checked my mails regularly, hoping for an answer. At that time, I didn't know how busy Ludwig usually is and I started getting disappointed. However, an inner voice still told me that Ludwig wasn't someone who didn't answer his mails, especially when they contained a personal introduction and the request for advice. The voice was right, ten days later I received an answer. I read Ludwig's mail and was stunned – all the questions he asked me about my kink and possible ways to explore it hit the mark and dominated my thoughts for the next days.

So our mail correspondence continued and the more I learned about Ludwig (and the guy behind the pseudonym, who is the one I have always really been interested in), the more it became obvious how much we had in common. In my second mail I told him about the picture of the Klingon mates that I had in my mind as an ideal conception for a partnership. Of course I wasn't talking about the two of us at that point. When I'm talking about looking for a mate, I have a picture of two strong animals in my mind – for example wolves or lions. They don't need a partner to survive, they are very well capable of taking care of themselves. But when they find their counterpart they can make the decision to continue their journey walking side by side. Not because they depend on each other, just because they realise that life is even better together. Of course I know that wolves and lions aren't really ticking like that. But this is the romantic picture I have for a perfect relationship. The German word "Gefährte" expresses that even better; it doesn't only mean mate, it can also be translated as companion, comrade, fellow and partner. It turned out that Ludwig liked the „Gefährten“-picture very much and that it fit his vision of a perfect intimate relationship very well.

The more I learned about Ludwig, the more it became obvious that he met all the expectations I had for a perfect mate. From reading his blog I already knew that he was well-educated, intelligent and an excellent writer. The video clips had shown me that he was also very handsome. Our mail conversation revealed that we shared the same kind of humour and liked similar styles of music. It also became clear that we had similar ideas about what constitutes a good relationship: Being honest with each other, talking openly about EVERYTHING, caring for one another but remaining self-dependent and meeting at eye level. Above that Ludwig fulfilled the last two necessary requirements I had – he didn't smoke and he didn't drink much alcohol.

There was just one big difference which could have been critical – Ludwig is an agnostic and I am a practising Christian. But it turned out that, first of all, our points of view concerning belief weren't really that different. And secondly, we could easily respect each other's position on that topic. And all the other different interests Ludwig had just made him more interesting for me. Still, finding a partner wasn't my top priority, exploring my kink with the help of someone more experienced was my main concern. But in the back of my head the little "potential partner benefit analysis calculator" added more and more to the score...

When we finally met it showed that the personal chemistry was also right. I felt very good, safe and comfortable at Ludwig's side. The rest of the story has already been written by him. To say it in my words – it turned out that Ludwig wasn't only my key to the world of spanking, I have finally found the mate I was always looking for!

Looking back, I'm quite sure that the fact that I had already given up the thought of finding a partner any time soon and had found an alternate plan for my future life was an important precondition for the relationship Ludwig and I are having now. While I always had that feeling that Ludwig might become a very special person for me, I didn't feel under pressure. I was happy about every new step we were taking, but there wasn't any necessity to reach a certain level (like having to find the partner for the rest of my life) or to hurry things. I could simply take the time to see what happened and how new developments made me feel; and when I found out that I was feeling comfortable I could take it one step further.

Interestingly, when I'm not being set under pressure things usually go very fast, and the same thing happened with our relationship. Ludwig once remarked that I made the same experiences which took him several years of time (exploring the internet about spanking, first contact with other spankos, first spanking, first relationship, first vanilla sex and so on) in less than one year. Honestly, after not having had a boyfriend for so many years and sometimes of course having asked myself whether there was something wrong with me, with Ludwig it all came quite naturally and without much thinking. There are some points where I'm setting myself under pressure, though. But that will be the topic of another post. I'm trying to become more relaxed concerning these things, to measure the pros and cons of different ways of dealing with them and to see where time takes us.

How about you? Have you ever made the experience that being happy with one’s vanilla life in combination with being open and living out one’s kink can lead to unexpected beautiful moments, good friendships or even love relationships? Please feel free to share your stories in the comment section!

Movie Review: The Thieves

Producer:

Pain4Fem (released in 2004)

Entire Story In Fewer Words Than Are In This Sentence:
Angry farmer spanks two juvenile delinquents

Victim Appeal:
This early release from Pain4Fem features Nicol, who had also been in their very first movie Illegal Download, and Valerie, a newcomer at the time who would go on to star in a few more videos. Nicol is blond, blue-eyed and fairly sexy. Valerie has pitch black hair, green eyes and is very sexy indeed. I became quite a fan through this movie and the others she has done. She has a great-looking face and body, and takes an impressive beating considering that it is her debut.

(Both girls also appear on Spanking Server, as do most models who have done a Pain4Fem feature film.)

Gratuitous Sadism:
Valerie and Nicol break into a farm, looking for food to steal. They wear nice white dresses and don't exactly look starving to me, so I guess they deserve everything that is about to happen to them. Predictably, the would-be-thieves get caught by the farmer (Peter Schober) and his wife (Helen). They are dragged into the stable where the farmer proceeds to tie them up and whip them.

Nicol is the first to get it, hands above her head, her shirt removed, lash after lash of the single tail landing on her bare back (she keeps her skirt on, no full nudity just yet). I counted 56 strokes. Valerie is next, same position, same state of undress. She gets 74 strokes. There are some that are repeated from different camera angles, as is Pain4Fem's custom. I didn't bother to re-watch the scenes over and over to pinpoint which strokes were repeatedly shown and which ones weren't, but I'd say that you can subtract about a dozen or two from the numbers given above to get close to the real ones. In any case, these are long whippings, and pretty hard, too.

At this point, the farmer is willing to let the girls go free. They are so infuriated, however, that they pick up some stones on their way out and start bombarding the farmer and his wife with them. He gets hit on the head by one (some fake blood on Peter Schober). It's a hilarious scene in its way: the farmer couple stands in an open gate while the stones fly at them, but instead of running back into the courtyard and taking cover behind the wall, they just keep standing there until he gets hit! Epic fail, dude. Anyway, the farmers give chase, catch the girls again, and another round of corporal punishment begins.

Nicol, first once more, has her clothes forcibly stripped off until she is naked except for her socks. She then receives a quick hand spanking from the farmer. The girl is lying in the grass and he is lying on top of her, a somewhat unorthodox arrangement. Next, they tie her to a wooden bench, flat on her belly, to thrash her bottom. The farmer gives Nicol 30 strokes with his belt, hands the belt to his wife who administers 7 more strokes, and then it's back to the farmer for 48 strokes with the cane. Switch to Valerie, who has her skirt removed and is bent over a table in the courtyard for half a minute of hand spanking. Then, she gets tied to the table and the farmer canes her, 53 strokes. A few repetitions again, so the canings are probably in the 30 to 40 stroke zone, really. When it is all over, the farmer leads the two chastised girls through the gate and throws them out. The thrashings are among the harder ones Pain4Fem have done and leave dark, vivid welts.

Best Reactions:
Valerie all the way. And even though I am an avowed fan of caning scenes (it is, and will probably forever remain, my favourite implement), I like her reactions during the back whipping best of all. She is moaning, yelping and writhing wonderfully - movement can be just as sexy as the vocalisation, and Valerie is quite adept at it. I'm fairly sure that there is some conscious acting involved, but it is a serious whipping and there certainly is enough real pain as well, so that's okay.

Best Line:
Halfway through her back whipping, the farmer asks Valerie if she learned anything yet. She spits in his face. He hollers: "Are you mad? Who's holding the whip? You stupid girl!" And continues to beat her. It sounds quite amusing with Peter Schober's Austrian hillbilly dialect, but you have to be a native German speaker to appreciate that fully.

Nice Psychological Touch:
Not nice, perhaps, but interesting. The synopsis on Pain4Fem's website points out that the thieves are "young foreign girls", and in the video itself, there is a line about "bloody foreigners" who "come over the border to rob us". Peter Schober has a habit of sneaking in some law-and-order noise with the spanking porn, and it was already apparent in the early days of 2004.

I'm usually very good at telling satire from the real thing, but honestly, I am never quite sure how serious the guy is. Is he a right winger? Is he parodying a right winger? Pain4Fem work with Czech models all the time, so they obviously can't be all that xenophobic. Then again, maybe Schober is for real and believes that by hiring these girls, he is saving them from slipping into a life of crime? I don't frigging know. He's probably just kidding around and laughing his arse off at me wondering about it.

How Good Is It Really?
The fourth film by Pain4Fem, The Thieves was a step forward in terms of setting and action. It was the first time they filmed extensive outdoor scenes and the thrashings were quite a bit more severe than what they had done before. To this day, the cane welts on Valerie's bottom remain one of the finest sets of stripes that I have seen from this producer. She is a gorgeous girl and makes a memorable debut here. Nicol's scenes are okay as well. The technical craftsmanship is decent, with some good perspectives and closeups during the CP. The story itself is unremarkable, - on the plus side, it wasn't yet another schoolgirl or prison scenario, but it wasn't too creative, either.

In summary, an above average movie due to its action scenes, Valerie's nice caning in particular.

What You Learned:
In Illegal Download, Pain4Fem were ripping off the famous caning bench by RGE / Lupus. Here, Nicol's thrashing with the belt and cane looks just like the type of scene that Russian Slaves have done over and over again. Granted, spanking film producers don't have a trademark on the furtniture and positions they use, but this is getting suspicious! Even so, well done for Schober: he may not be the most original producer out there, but he has the right influences.

Return of the King

Right, I'm finally back from being missing in action. Or non-action, I should say, because spanking and kink have been pretty low on my radar these last four weeks. There is no need to worry, though (thanks, Arjuna): I'm not suffering from autumn depression, and neither is Kaelah. Actually, autumn is probably my favourite season of the year, because it is so well-suited to a nerdy indoor lifestyle like mine. You just sit around reading books while the leaves are dancing in the cold breeze outside, and no one is bothering you about skiing trips yet...

No, I simply needed a break from blogging, that's all. I didn't plan for it (otherwise, I would have let you know about it in advance), it just turned out that way. There was work to be done, and I also had a slight cold that kept me down for a few days. Most of all, however, I was simply lacking the proper inspiration to write anything. It's interesting - I've had phases before when I was busy and / or ill, but I still managed to keep the blog going at full speed. This time, I didn't. I believe that, when these lapses happen, it's a question of inspiration more than anything else.

My least productive month so far was May 2009, when I only made three posts. I had a tough workload, computer problems, a case of food poisoning... But again, I think there was more to it than that. With hindsight, I now notice that it came fairly close after I finished my massive behind-the-scenes report about my first spanking movie shoot. That report took a lot out of me, more than I realised at the time. Fast forward to the recent past: in September, I do the behind-the-scenes report about my second movie shoot, another epic in four parts. And again, after a month's delay, perhaps a little over a month, I run out of steam for the time being and I need an extended break. I'd say there is a pattern here, wouldn't you?

It certainly isn't too far-fetched. Not only do these extended pieces burn up a lot of "creative energy", after which one's batteries need recharging. They also set a pretty high benchmark in terms of quality, and for a while, it can be daunting to sit down and blog again. You wonder, what am I going to do now? How will it compare? That's the downside of having produced something you are truly, unreservedly happy with. Fortunately, it doesn't happen to me very often!

Anyway, I do feel recharged now, so without further ado... One by one, I'm going to answer your emails that have been piling up in my inbox for the past few weeks. I pride myself on the fact that I answer every single mail (except for spam, obviously), so you always get a reply, even though it may take a while. I'll also look at the comments to my posts, so if you left one recently, you might get a belated reply to that, too. And in December, it will be back to a normal posting schedule.

Lastly, here is something where I can use your input: over the winter, I plan to overhaul some of the features of the blog. For instance, instead of the little "About Me" paragraph you can see on the right, I'll create an "About Us" section on a separate page, with mini-biographies that introduce both Kaelah and me to new readers. In another step, I'll revamp and update my link list. I might make some changes to the categories / post tags. And so forth.

So, if you have any suggestions for the blog, now is a good time to speak up. Maybe there is a feature you would like to see, or a link to some interesting new spanking website that you'd like me to add (I can't possibly keep track of everything out there myself, so links are something you can always help with). Whatever it is, just leave a comment or send me an email, and I will consider it. If I like an idea, and if it is doable, I'll include it in my winter overhaul for Rohrstock-Palast Mark 2. Out with the old, in with the new!