Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Kaelah's Corner (Nov 2010): Top Or Flop?

In the last edition of Kaelah's Corner titled Both Sides Of The Story I told you what switching in my relationship with Ludwig means to me. I analysed in how far Ludwig's and my tastes as tops and bottoms are similar and where they differ. As it turned out our basic preferences are quite similar although there are of course certain differences concerning the limits we both have. My first topping experience and the feelings I had before, during and after the scene will be the topic of today's and next month's post.

When Ludwig made his decision to pay his football bet debts it was clear to me right from the beginning that I wanted to be part of this special event. And after a lot of thinking and some talk we decided that I wouldn't only be an observer but an active top. To make it a bit easier for me, I would only participate in the back whipping and the wonderful Leia-Ann Woods, who had kindly accepted our invitation to be the main top for the scene, would administer the cane strokes alone. After all, Leia-Ann was much more experienced while this was the first time ever for me to spank someone!

I was very glad that we had decided to ask Leia-Ann to be the debt collector. Despite of many differences between her and my kinky fantasies, I always feel very relaxed in her presence and it seems to me that we are somehow on the same wavelength. When we had met Leia-Ann for the first time for dinner last year there had already been a lot of joking and laughing. And it was exactly the same when we met for shooting the clip.

(Leia-Ann and me fooling around.)

As a matter of fact I've rarely been that relaxed in front of a camera, at least not right from the beginning. Partly this might have been because I obviously feel more comfortable as a top than I do as a bottom on a shoot and because we didn't film any acting scenes which are more difficult for me than pure action scenes, especially in a foreign language. But I think the main credit for this goes to Leia-Ann and her relaxed and happy attitude which blew away my concerns and my usual strict focus on doing a good “job”. Instead I was having fun and enjoying the time with Ludwig and Leia-Ann, of course without forgetting to look for good camera angles and a set-up that would make a beautiful clip.

Of course, the prospect of co-topping with Leia-Ann had made me very nervous at first. After all Leia-Ann isn't only a very experienced top, she is also an incredibly beautiful and elegant woman. I wasn't sure whether Leia-Ann would be fine working with an inexperienced newbie like me. And to be honest, what scared me even more was the thought of looking like a short-legged dachshund next to her. But the fun we had during the shoot also made me forget about these fears. Even though our very first scenes showed that they weren't far fetched.

At the beginning Leia-Ann and I took our share of six flogger strokes each. I was quite happy with my posture, but when I saw Leia-Ann taking position I just hoped that I wouldn't look too clumsy compared to that elegant lady! We both received our strokes with the flogger we were going to use on Ludwig later. It already became clear at that point that my flogger was much meaner than the one Leia-Ann had chosen. Hers was very heavy and looked and sounded very impressive. It wasn't exactly a light flogger, but it produced less pain and marks than the one Ludwig and I had brought. Our specimen looks rather innocent, but it is made of heavy rubber and its tips are quite sharp. Ludwig and I had tried to get a fitting second one for the clip, but surprisingly the company which produced these floggers didn't seem to exist any more. I wonder why?

(Pure elegance and...)

However, I was very happy when Leia-Ann with all her experience confirmed after inspecting our flogger that this specimen wasn't to be underestimated. To my mind it also wasn't too easy to handle. I had only had the chance to practise on a living object twice. Each time Ludwig had had a big pillow tied behind his upper back which made him look a bit like Quasimodo, the famous hunchback of Notre Dame. My aim was to neither hit Ludwig's spine with the tips of the flogger nor to let it wrap around, which meant that there was only a rather small target area left. I realised that therefore my technique of swinging the flogger was different from Leia-Ann's whipping technique. But she told me that my technique looked appropriate for the characteristics of the implement which reassured me a lot.

I always said that accuracy was highly important for me when playing as a bottom or watching a scene. It is something I expect from everyone who seriously calls him- or herself a top. Of course a mishit can happen, especially if someone hasn't got much experience as a top or when experimenting with a new implement. But still the high expectations I usually have of myself made me consider any mishit as being unacceptable. So my biggest fear was that the first stroke might not be on target and that I would probably never try it again, being afraid of injuring someone.

On the other hand I didn't want to hit too softly. As they say, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. And of course I wanted to make an impression on Ludwig as well as on the viewers of the clip. After all my very first experience with topping would be taped on camera and published! I was sure that the video would automatically be compared to the famous Comeuppance clip. Niki Flynn been had been a fantastic top, so I knew that the expectations would be very high.

How could I meet those high quality standards not only concerning the severity and accuracy but also the psychological part of topping? Would Ludwig get anything out of my topping style and would it meet his preferences? I knew that Ludwig only switches on very rare occasions and prefers to be spanked properly when he does. So of course I wanted to fulfil this desire as well. Since the clip didn't only feature Ludwig and me but Leia-Ann as well, it was also clear that there would be no chance to redo the scene or to back out once the flogging had started. Quite frankly all these thoughts had bothered me a lot in the weeks before the shoot.

(...the dachshund version.)

Of course there had been excitement as well. I had been looking forward to this rare chance to top my mate. My attempt was to show him how mean that sweet little flogger which he had so often used on me really was! I wanted to see his reactions on the flogging in the knowledge that it was me who provoked these reactions. And I wanted to know how it is to spank someone, what kind of top I would be and how I would feel during the scene.

It was this mixture of concerns and excitement that was still inside me during the beginning of the shoot. Even though, as I already mentioned, fooling around with Leia-Ann didn't give me much time for worrying. And then suddenly the big moment was there. Ludwig had taken off his shirt and assumed his position. I checked the cameras at least twice to make sure that they were both running. Leia-Ann, being left-handed, was standing on Ludwig's right side and I assumed my position on the left.

Suddenly I realised that Leia-Ann and I hadn't talked about who would start. Within a sub-second time I decided to go first. I made eye-contact with Leia-Ann and gave her a signal. Then I lifted the flogger, took aim and applied the first-ever stroke of my life on Ludwig's bare skin. The flogger landed right on target. And it clearly elicited a reaction from Ludwig. All the fears and concerns that had bothered me during the recent weeks started to fade... [To be continued]

(Finally taking aim myself!)

How about you? Can you recall your feelings prior to your first topping experience? Was there a lot of excitement? Did you have any concerns? Who was involved in the scene and what kind of relationship did the participants have? And where did it happen, in private or in public? Or are you maybe still in the process of deciding whether to take the plunge or not? I'm looking forward to reading your stories and thoughts in the comment section!

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Kinky Feedback Loop

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

That's The Way Life Goes


In her post With love from me to me Emma Jane published a very touching letter she had written to her sixteen-year-old self. The idea was inspired by a book called “With love from Me to Me: letters to my sixteen-year-old self” which consists of several letters of that kind, written by different authors. Emma Jane's letter moved me and made me think about what I would write to my sixteen-year-old self. But when I started writing my own letter, I realised that I'm not sure which things I would like to tell my sixteen-year-old self and that the letter definitely wouldn't contain any thoughts about spanking.

Because, quite frankly, my kink didn't bother me much at the age of sixteen. I only remember one particular occasion on which I complained to a very close friend about those strange fantasies I had. But most of the time I just accepted the kinky pictures in my head as being a part of me and didn't worry much about them, although I didn't really understand at that point of my life what they were all about. I knew that my fantasies were sexually arousing and had a vague idea that they somehow had something to do with S&M, but they didn't really fit to the pictures of mistresses in leather outfits shown on TV. It was not until more than ten years later that I read the words “erotic spanking” for the very first time and began to understand. At sixteen I just enjoyed the pictures in my head and the feelings they produced. My fantasies weren't of any practical relevance, anyway, since I didn't have a boyfriend and therefore had no sex life at all (apart from self love, of course). And actually the idea of living out any kind of BDSM fantasies with a partner any time in the future was way beyond my imagination at that time.

There were many other things on my mind at the age of sixteen, though: Changes in the family structure, school, friends and, of course, the question if and when I would find Mr Right. As I know now, that didn't happen during the next ten plus years. A lot of other things did happen, though, good ones and sad ones. But actually, I wouldn't like to tell my sixteen-year-old self about them and I don't feel any urge to give her much advice either. Because first of all, I think that knowing all those events in advance would have unnecessarily scared me. It's hard enough to deal with sad things when they happen, there's no need to waste any energy beforehand. And secondly, from my point of view today I think that all those experiences were extremely important, maybe especially the not so nice ones. Because they showed me that I can deal with difficult situations and taught me to treat myself with care and respect.

So, I don't regret anything I've done so far in my life and I wouldn't want to change anything. I made some experiences more painful for myself than necessary, but obviously I sometimes only learn the hard way. And I guess I can be very glad to have a body which tells me off on not taking enough care (and instead putting too much pressure on myself) rather quickly. The only advice that might have been helpful in order to go through all those things could have been that one simple insight: There's always a light at the end of the tunnel, even if you can't see it and everything around you just seems to be completely hopeless and dark.

There is only one specific event (or rather two events) which I would love to change. I would even be willing to pay a high price for it. And that's my mum's death and the fact that Ludwig's dad passed away before I even got the chance to meet him. Both are greatly missed! And yes, one can definitely miss a person one has never met! There are so many questions I would like to ask Ludwig's dad, so many things I can't tell him. At least Ludwig had the chance to meet my mother and we had a wonderful time together, but still I would have loved her to stay with us for much longer and to hold her grandchildren in her arm one day! I miss her love and heartiness, cuddling her, our excursions and the daily talks on the phone, hearing her voice, telling her about my day and asking her for advice.

So, I thought that I could for example tell my sixteen-year-old self to send my mum to a doctor at a certain time in order to save her life. But being the INTJ that I am, of course the question of changing the time-line and the possible consequences of that action came to my mind. Well, I don't have the ability to change the past, anyway, and maybe it is somehow good that I can't change anything, even though I don't see the greater good of my mum's early death. But since I can't change things, I'm again very happy I didn't have a clue that my mum would die so young when I was sixteen. Because at that age I wouldn't have been able to deal with that thought at all.

Apart from these two big losses I'm very happy with where I am today! Even though many things are very different from the expectations my sixteen-year-old self had. I think at the age of sixteen I would have pictured myself now as being married to a guy I met many years ago, having a child or children, living in a little flat and having an intellectually challenging but safe job in a nice stable little environment with a lot of numbers but not too many people around (because people are scary, you know?).

Instead I'm living in a long-distance relationship with a man I only met a little under two years ago. My home is much different from what I would have expected. I'm no mother, yet. My PhD thesis is still in progress and my job situation is quite different from my old plans, too. I'm exploring the world of spanking, writing posts for an erotic blog in English, posting sexy pictures of myself and planning a future that holds many more risks than I thought I could ever take. And you know what? I'm very happy with my life! But I think my sixteen-year-old self would be scared to death (and she wouldn't be able to believe that sex blog thing, anyway). So I better don't tell her...

Because to my mind it was okay to start out with a clear, simple picture of life. I've just learnt throughout my journey that trusting my gut feeling and changing some of the “musts” and “That's the way life goes” premises to “Why not?” and “Which way is the right one for me?” opens up many new wonderful possibilities. Life is much too short to waste it with fears and clinging to traditional or “normal” (whatever that is) paths that don't work out.

I would never have found my way into this community if I had not learnt to be more open to the things around me. I would never have met my mate, I would never have felt womanly and sexy and I would surely never have been as content as I am today. Of course I've still got my insecurities. Of course I'm still scared of things (maybe even more than I was at a younger age). I still don't know where my journey might take me, but I'll take it step by step. That approach worked out quite well so far and I hope it also will in the future.

So, maybe I could cut down my letter to my sixteen-year-old self as follows:

Dear K.,

unfortunately I still don't know much more about the meaning of life than you, but I can definitely tell you that life is an exciting journey. And it might take you to places you haven't gone before. Like in Star Trek, you know? Yes, I'm still a trekkie and a geek, don't worry, some good things won't ever change! ;-) Just trust your gut feeling (you'll learn that, so don't put yourself under pressure).


Of course there aren't only happy days, there are sad days as well. But believe me, you've got the power to deal with it, no matter what. And there is always sunshine again, even after a longer period of rain. I know that this sounds trivial, but there will be times when the end of the tunnel seems out of reach and remembering this little simple line might be helpful and comforting.


I don't want to tell you everything about your future, just that much: In some years you'll be much more relaxed and content than you are now. And I guess that's the most important thing in life! Oh, and you'll even be a little bit cool... :-) Okay, one more secret: You'll find your mate and he is sexy and sweet and a wonderful partner! And another thing: You'll even feel womanly and sexy yourself. Okay, I better stop here before I have given away everything. You'll find out about all the things that'll happen step by step. So don't ask me why I'm writing this letter in English. That's another strange and very exciting story! And no, you haven't emigrated...


Enjoy the ride and take good care of yourself! And don't worry, you'll never be alone, there will always be people around you who love you and care about you.


I'll see you in about fifteen years from now!


Love and many hugs,

K.


How about you? Would you love to give your sixteen-year-old self some advice? Would you like to change the time-line? Or would you just want to write your younger self some words of reassurance? Would spanking play a role in your letter? And did your kink bother you at that age? Whatever thoughts you have on that topic, feel free to share them in the comment section! And thank you very much, Emma Jane, for all the thought fodder!

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Oktoberfest Kink


Why am I writing about the Oktoberfest in mid-November? Well, I was going to make a post about it a month ago, at the appropriate time. But I was too busy with other things and eventually discarded the idea - maybe I would dig it back up in 2011. Then, by pure chance, I found an interesting news item about this year's edition of the Oktoberfest, and felt that I had to address it immediately. So I am doing the post after all. Without further delay.

The news item is this blog entry by a German travel guide: Oktoberfest's Lost and Found - A Pug, a Rabbit, and a Leather Whip. It seems that, according to the official post-festival statistics, the lost and found items list of this year includes:
  • 1,450 items of clothing
  • 770 passports
  • 420 wallets
  • 420 mobile phones
  • 1 set of dentures
  • 1 rabbit
  • 1 pug
  • 1 leather whip
So, for the record: while Kaelah and I did visit this year's Oktoberfest, the lost leather whip does not belong to us. Neither do any of the other items on the list. I hate to disappoint our ardent fans who would think us capable of every imaginable perversion, but we did not bring along any BDSM gear during our visit (or pugs, or rabbits...). We were simply there to savour the more ordinary, but nonetheless pleasant joys of the festival. The most tasteless activity we indulged in was eating cotton candy (Kaelah's idea).

As for the whip, I can only speculate like the rest of you: who did it belong to? Why did he (she?) take it along to the festival? Under which circumstances did it come to be lost? Or was it perhaps deliberately left there? For what reason? It's a royal puzzle.

At least it gives me an excuse to write about the Oktoberfest. I've been waiting for a news item like that, a random and trivial curiosity which I can misconstrue as being somehow kink-relevant. With that out of the way, let me move on to one of my beloved historical mini-essays:

The original Oktoberfest in Munich was held in 1810 to celebrate the marriage of Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig (later King Ludwig I.) to Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. The date is sometimes given as October 12th, sometimes as October 17th. From what I can ascertain, the truth is that the marriage took place on October 12th, the festivities lasted for five days and ended on October 17th with a great horse race on a meadow outside the city walls. The public was invited as well. Bavaria had only recently been elevated by Napoleon Bonaparte from an electorate (a kind of duchy) to a kingdom, and the rulers used the marriage celebrations to showcase their newfound splendour.

(Ludwig I., King of Bavaria.
A portrait by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1826.)

That first festival was mostly a series of sports events, much more akin to the Olympic games than to the beer-guzzling funfair it has become today. The Crown Prince was a glowing admirer of ancient Greece (later, as king, he erected numerous classicist buildings that still shape the cityscape of Munich). The Oktoberfest was such a popular success that, much to the delight of their subjects, the royals decided to hold one every year from now on. And so began a tradition that still continues today. Two hundred years after its inception, the Oktoberfest has become the world's largest funfair and a major tourist magnet. It lasts a little over two weeks nowadays, ending on the first Sunday in October, and attracts over six million visitors during that time. The fairground is called Theresienwiese, the "meadow of Therese", named after Crown Prince Ludwig's bride. Bavarians usually refer to the festival as "die Wiesn", "the meadow".

Actually, the Theresienwiese today is not a meadow, it's a huge space of asphalt. During the Oktoberfest, it is filled with carousels, rollercoasters, ghost trains and, of course, gargantuan beer tents where people gather to eat roast chicken and get drunk. Every local brewery has its own tent and its own brand of beer brewed especially for the festival. Contrary to an Australian legend I once heard, the beer at the Oktoberfest is not free. It is actually rather expensive, but good. The alcohol level of the Oktoberfest brews is higher than that of normal beers, around six or seven percent. Tourists who don't realise that are in for a nasty surprise the morning after.

The citizens of Munich today have an ambivalent relationship with their famous festival. It is often dismissed as a mere commercialised tourist attraction "for Italians, Japanese and Prussians" ("Prussian" refers to all non-Bavarian Germans, regardless of whether they are Rhinelanders, Saxons or whatever). At the same time, there remains an unspoken civic duty that you have to visit the Oktoberfest at least once each year, otherwise you're a bore and not a good Bavarian. Many locals avoid the weekends when the Wiesn is at its most crowded, they use a leave day from work instead. Once they are there, they find that they are having a great time after all. Usually after the first beer.

I had been forced to neglect my civic duty in 2009 because I was travelling at the time, so I was actually quite keen to go this year. Especially because Kaelah, being a northerner, had never been to the Oktoberfest at all (which kind of contradicts the "It's only for Prussians!" theory, but let us ignore that). I just had to introduce her to the madness that is our proud southern heritage. So, first thing, I showed her one of the beer tents and we walked from one end to the other. It has to be seen to be fully believed. You have literally thousands of people (the biggest tent accommodates 10.000 at a time), crammed in like cattle, the air saturated with beer fumes and relentless, ear-splitting brass music that makes anything but shouted conversations impossible, and they are all pretending that it's really cosy. The most gemütlich experience ever. Actually, it can be fun if you are in the right mood. But Kaelah and I kept our visit short, all the more so because she is a teetotaller and does not have the aid of drinking to make things enjoyable.

Instead, benign soul that I am, I took her to the notorious Fünferlooping (five loopings) rollercoaster. Kaelah has a history of nearly passing out in rollercoasters, which leads to fear of rollercoasters, which leads to her Klingon side wanting to confront and conquer that fear. Same thing as in spanking, really. So of course we had to do it. Kaelah was getting more nervous with every minute we stood in the queue, but she did not chicken out, did not faint during the ride (although she said later that she came close during the first looping) and was smugly proud of herself afterwards. Did you notice that she even mentioned the five loopings in a recent column of hers? I tell you, she is almost as proud of it as of those cane marks. So I felt compelled to recount the heroic story as well, and express my compliments.

(The site of Kaelah's triumph.)

But let's get back to truly kink-related matters. Many years ago, as a teenager, I rode on a very interesting ghost train at the Oktoberfest. I am not a huge fan of ghost trains, or haunted houses or whatever they are called. As a stuck-up, elitist fan of "serious" horror (like Braindead), I find them childish and somewhat beneath me. But back then I rode one, and it turned out to be unexpectedly inspiring. One of the attractions which you passed inside your little car was a depiction of a rather sexy M/M birching scene (I'm hetero, but I appreciate a good scene regardless of sexual orientation). It consisted of two life-sized plastic figures, one very Krampus-like and slowly, mechanically swinging a large birch with which he whipped the other figure, a naked young man whom he held over his knee. There were even some bloody welts painted on the victim's bottom, and howls of pain emanating from loudspeakers with every stroke. It was an impressively, lovingly detailed construction. Whoever created it must have been one of us, no question about it.

I have been trying to find that ghost train again ever since. Unbelievable as it sounds, I totally forgot what it was called or how it even looked like on the outside (I guess the view on the inside made too much of an impression on me for me to remember anything else). So now, despite not being a fan of ghost trains in general, I try out one or two every year at the Oktoberfest in the hope that it is the one. I never found it. I suspect that the birching scene was removed long ago, anyway. In the politically correct climate of today, where public life is strenuously, fearfully sanitised of everything that anyone, anywhere, might find offensive, it would be considered too much of a risk. Never mind that the spankee in the depiction was obviously a young man, not a child. Never mind that the action is M/M and could not even be accused of "degrading women". It would still be a petty little scandal waiting to happen.

So, when Kaelah and I went on one of the ghost trains, all we saw was the usual clean family fun: hooded figures chopping off heads with scythes or pulling out each other's entrails. Fortunately, depictions of death and graphic dismemberment are still okay for funfairs, while a vaguely erotically charged spanking scene probably isn't. Doesn't the hypocrisy of it make you want to puke in your suit? But enough ranting. The point is, we did not see any plastic figures with birches. Kaelah was very disappointed. Like many females, she holds the (justified) opinion that there is not enough good M/M spanking porn out there on the web. She had hoped to at least see some at the Oktoberfest.

We did see one borderline kinky scene, though. Because 2010 marked the 200th anniversary of the festival, there was a special "historical Oktoberfest" section on the fairground this year. It had many of the old amusement rides from the last two hundred years, venerable old carousels and funhouses, plus a small Oktoberfest museum. As a historian, I was delighted. Then, suddenly, while walking around this part of the fairground, we had the following chance encounter: three young men in traditional Bavarian costume, lederhosen and all, came running past us, apparently in a jolly half-drunken mood and playing tag. One of them was chasing the others with his belt, swinging at them and making the occasional hit. A minute or so later, they came running by again, in the other direction, same arrangement. So Kaelah and I had witnessed some action after all. M/M action, even.

Was one guy chasing the others, with the belt, because they had misplaced his other favourite spanking implement? Is that what the lost leather whip was all about? Sadly, we will never know.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Mission Accomplished

(A young Ensign on a diplomatic mission -
first-time contact with a species called the Spankos.)

It's finally done! On Monday, Ludwig and I shot my blogiversary spanking clip. Maybe you're asking yourself why it took us about nearly eight weeks after the closing day of the poll to film the clip. Well, first of all, Ludwig and I live in a long-distance relationship and don't see each other that often which makes it more difficult to find the time. And secondly, this project (like all projects) cost a lot more time and effort than originally planned. I made a list of all the clip-related activities we had so far and was quite stunned myself about how much time went into that “little” blogiversary fun clip.


Creating and writing the story: 8 hours

Shopping for clothes, make-up and props: 5 hours

Preparing the set: 3 hours

Creating a Klingon forehead: 2 hours

Getting dressed and applying the make-up: 2 hours

Shooting the clip: 6 hours

Getting rid of the make-up: 2 hours


(Who wouldn't want to make contact with
such a handsome representative? But what

are these strange items he is pointing at?)

I did some of the preparations on my own, like writing the basic storyline and creating the Klingon forehead which was made of bandages, paper tissue and liquid flesh latex and cost me not only two hours of time, but some hairs and parts of my eyebrows as well... But most of the time Ludwig and I shared the work. That means to get the total number of working hours that went into the clip you have to multiply most of the numbers by two. Then it all adds up to a total of about 40+ which is the average number of working hours per week for many employees.

At least that explains why Ludwig often rolled his eyes during the preparations and mumbled something about me taking things too seriously and making them too complicated. Maybe he's not completely wrong... But please don't tell him about my confession! And the only thing that counts, anyway, is the quality of the resulting clip, right? So, what are you going to get? Hmm, well, thinking about it, what you're going to get is a clip consisting of people in stupid looking outifts who take themselves dead seriously, some really stiff acting (we didn't have much space and in addition to that my English was so bad on Monday that I wasn't able to do the whole clip freestyle) and a tangled storyline with a profound moral message. In other words, it's going to be a perfect Star Trek clip!


(Different cultures, different customs...)

Unfortunately I have to leave you with these stills for the moment because the post production will surely take another two months. We worked with different camera angles and all the little pieces must be put together now. Since Ludwig still has several other clips in the pipeline, I'll have to install the necessary freeware editing programs on my computer as well (or maybe even buy a more professional editing software, any recommendations anyone?) and learn how to edit a spanking clip. But be assured I'll give my best to make the clip available as soon as possible!