Sunday, October 17, 2010

Bears Say It With A Slap...

When I was younger, I loved bears! Okay, most of us do, but there was a special reason for my fascination with these beautiful animals. I came to love them because Walt Disney taught me that all bears are kinky! Well, at least those who are properly socialised...

You can find the proof in one section of Walt Disney's animated feature Fun and Fancy Free from 1947. It's about circus bear Bongo who runs away because he wants to be free and live like a wild bear. He falls in love with the beautiful Lulubelle, but unfortunately Bongo has never learnt how wild bears show their affection for each other. So, he is completely devastated when his advances provoke rather painful reactions. Maybe his rival, the bully Lumpjaw, who considers Lulubelle to be his property, has won her heart after all? But then Bongo finds out what it really is that bears say with a slap...



Isn't that sweet? Thank you, Walt Disney for showing a young kinkster like me what erotic spanking is all about! I wonder, should I use that clip one day to explain to Ludwig's and my future children what daddy and mummy are doing at night? To me it seems like a great way for kinky parents to introduce their kids to the concept of kink and how there is nothing threatening or unnatural about it. I'm not sure, though, what might happen when the kids visit the zoo with their grandparents or school class afterwards!

Or should one keep all those things away from children, anyway? Ludwig is of the opinion that it is better to wait until one's children are teenagers, and thereby old enough to fully understand that BDSM between consenting adults is not violence, before one breaches the subject with them. I'm not sure, though. To my mind the risk of a child one day unexpectedly witnessing sexual play between its parents is quite high, despite of all possible safety measures. And then a child might be even more shocked if it never heard anything about erotic spanking before...

13 comments:

Unknown said...

It leaves me wondering if Disney would be bold enough to make such a thing these days, with all the sensitivity about domestic violence. Somehow I find myself doubting it.

simon said...

very intresting clip but as you say they are only slapping not spanking as such also when you do have kids in the future i would wait until they are teenagers before they take part in any spanking games.love simon.

Ludwig said...

@ Morgrim: I doubt it, too, given that we live in an age where over-simplification, feigned moral outrage, cheap "gotchas" and shouting down the opposition have become the norm in discussions, instead of reasoned analysis and argument (just look at what passes for political debate these days). Pity that what is really a rather innocent, playful scene like this would no longer be possible in a cartoon today. I mean, it should be obvious that it is not supportive of domestic violence. Actually, the message of the whole film is an empowering one, with the heroine Lulubelle rebuking the bully Lumpjaw and deciding that she wants to be with her true love Bongo instead...

@ Simon: Kaelah was not talking about having children take part in spanking games. That would be utterly inappropriate regardless of their age. I would have thought that this is obvious to all readers, but apparently, it is not.

She was merely talking about possibly enlightening one's children about the fact that their parents are kinky, and the question of how one could explain that to them. In case the children find an implement around the house or in case it becomes an issue for some other reason. As Kaelah wrote, I for one feel that kinky parents should wait until their children are teenagers before they consider talking to them about it, because smaller children will probably not be able to understand it no matter how you try to explain it to them.

Unknown said...

Speaking as, I suspect, one of the younger readers of this blog, I have to back Ludwig here. Despite school sex ed classes giving the really basic mechanics of sex greater understanding of it didn't happen until early teens, roughly puberty. If you've had the sort of getting sprung and highly awkward 'well, when a mummy and a daddy love each other very much' conversation afterwards, then adding how you 'like to play adult games with each other' I think would work. After all, kids don't know this is supposed to be 'wrong'. Although then you might have awkward conversations if they mention it to your friends as children seem to do.

I found myself drawn to certain spanking scenes in books (Enid Blyton and the original Blinky Bill stories) before that, but I certain didn't understand and didn't really have the capacity to understand until about 14, and only fully grasped around 18 when I moved out of home for uni and met kinky people. So I'd say somewhere in that teenage bracket they'd have the capacity to understand. And, regrettably, that it tends to be something one has to keep quiet about for social reasons. :|

simon said...

yes you are right i took it the wrong way and no kids should be spanked by anyone only when they become adults and want to play spanking games.love simon.

Val said...

It's hard enough to keep kids on the straight, worrying about kink-teaching is a bit far reaching for me, I don't get that notion. I just don't see it, teaching a however-many-year old. Honestly, I would not worry about teaching about kink, they'll find their own if they truly have it.

Ludwig said...

@ Val: I think that you, like Simon, totally misunderstood what Kaelah was trying to say. She was not talking about "kink-teaching". She was simply talking about the question of what to do if children happen to find out, somehow, that their parents play "strange games" in the bedroom. Of course, that is something kinky parents will try to prevent, especially if the children are still small. But as we all know, no safeguard is one hundred percent safe.

So, how should one react if the children found out somehow? How does one explain these "strange games" to them? Should one even try to explain it, or make up some "It's nothing!" story instead? This is what Kaelah was talking about, basically.

Kaelah said...

I have to admit I'm quite surprised and a bit shocked how easy it seems to be to misunderstand my thoughts. Like Ludwig explained I wasn't of course talking about teaching our future children to be kinky!

But I grew up in a family where I was allowed to ask any question and where there were no (at least bigger) secrets between my parents and me. I think I asked my parents about the facts of life at quite a young age and I was never shocked about anything they and later my teachers at school told me. My parents had grown up at a time when one wasn't allowed to talk about these things and had made very unpleasant experiences because of that. That's why they wanted to do it differently. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't raised in a kind of hippy household with all doors being open all the time, but I was always allowed to ask. And of course I once accidentally saw them having sex (like many kids do, even if their parents are usually careful to make sure that they don't). But it didn't shock me at all because I knew it was something natural and good between adults. I think I remember that I asked one of them the next day whether what they were doing when I accidentally entered the room and saw them was having sex. I was told that this assumption was right and the case was closed for me.

And with all these things about my childhood in my mind, I simply asked myself how to deal with kink. It's not only about being seen during play. But what about possible marks? Should I always hide from my children to make sure that they never ever see them? I mark quite easily, so the only alternative "safe" solution would be to have only love taps or not to play at all any more. And quite frankly, I think both solutions, either frantically hiding from my children and having this mystical topic no is allowed to talk about or not having more intensive sexual play at all any more would be much more dangerous for our future children, our relationship and the family as such, than telling the kids (of course in simple words which are suitable for their age) that mum and dad enjoy playing adult games and that this is nothing they ever have to worry about. I'm not talking about any detailed descriptions here, of course! I'm just talking about the "mum and dad like to play adult games" explanation Morgrim mentioned. To my mind children are much more capable of understanding the essence of simple explanations and of distinguishing between things than many adults think. In my opinion what really frightens them are secrets (they know that there is something going on, but nobody tells them what it means) and the feeling that mum and dad don't love each other or them any more. And I'm convinced that children have a very good sensor for both of these things.

Well, but of course children are different and Ludwig obviously didn't seem to be very interested in asking his parents too much about sexuality. So I think I'll just wait and see how our children are wired. But I guess I'll definitely prefer to answer their questions and to live with the risk that they might talk about the topic in public (I think you are right Morgrim, children tend to do that with things that interest them and which they don't consider being wrong) to telling them that there are things they are not allowed to know and to ask or talk about...

Peter8862 said...

Kaelah - the danger of children letting the cat out of the bag is a very real one, as was illustrated by the title of a certain cp book : "You beat men up for a living, don't you Mummy".

I can trace my interest in spanking to the age of eleven but I didn't realise the erotic element until fourteen when I began collecting canes. Later, when bringing up our two boys, my wife and I followed the dictum : Wait until they ask. The trouble was that they never asked, having found it all out elsewhere !

Drifter said...

I wonder, though, how many children would, upon discovering that their parents like smacking each other around, would read a sexual meaning into that?

The topic that some people like to play rough games with each other is easy enough to understand--*especially* for children, who often like to do it themselves.

Why connect it to the "when Mommies and Daddies love each other very much..." conversation at all? I'm a fan of the "Some people--kids and grown-ups--like playing rough games with each other. See, there are kids wrestling around, and grown-ups playing football, and your mommy and I sometimes play like that too. What's important is to make sure that somebody *else* likes showing affection that way, before you try to do it, because some people don't like it and just feel like somebody's beating up on them."

When they're teenagers, they can find or figure out that the grown-up games have a different flavor than the kid games, but they'll already have the basic idea that it's affectionate.

Kaelah said...

@ Peter:

Your experience with your sons confirms yet again that different children are different and that some of them never ask. And the danger of children bringing their parents into strange situations because of their openness and honesty really seems to be rather high. But I have to admit that I would prefer having to handle situations like that to having children who don't talk about what they have seen or heard because they think it is something bad and wrong. The book sounds very interesting! Have you read it and can you recommend it?


@ Drifter:

Thanks a lot for your idea! I thought about drawing the connection between children's fights and rough games (between their parents), too, especially because Ludwig and I really enjoy little fun fights from time to time. But I didn't know how to formulate my explanation to make sure that the children understand the difference between good fun fights and wrong fights where one person really tries to hurt another one. Your suggestion here is great!

Talking about rough games would also lower the risk of a child being shocked by marks it might accidentally see. And you are right, at a certain age the children will most probably understand the connection between these rough games and adult games, but since they will be used to the concept of rough games by then, chances are high that they won't see it as something negative. So, thank you very much, your comment really helped me a lot! :-)

Peter8862 said...

Kaelah - I think I know where there is a copy of that book and will investigate.

It is generally accepted that children are usually much more reluctant to talk about sexual matters with their parents after puberty, or at least boys are, which is probably why mine never asked ! In my next life I will try to remember that the rule "Wait till they ask" only applies up to puberty, not beyond.

Kaelah said...

@ Peter:
Thanks for investigating concerning the book! I think you're right, kids are usually more reluctant to discuss sexual matters with their parents after puberty. But I'm sure your boys had other sources where they found the answers they were looking for. :-)