Kaelah's Corner (Mar 2013): Rhythm of the Beat

(Ritual spanking with a pomlázka. Picture taken from Wikipedia.)

Today, Christians all over the world celebrate Easter. When I became an atheist, this was one life structuring ritual that I lost. For me, rituals are about structure, but also about feeling connected with others, family, friends and larger communities. Since it is my firm conviction that atheists need rituals as much as religious people do, I decided to celebrate the holiday as a symbol of spring, fertility and (earthly) life, like others in many different cultures do and have done for a very long time. In Germany, this is symbolized by the bunny that brings coloured eggs as presents.

Unfortunately, there is not much spring awakening to be seen outside right now here in Germany. And since I have been ill for several days, being on the mend, I can't go outside for very long, anyway. Well, at least I can enjoy the thought that there are some very kinky Easter traditions out there, for instance in the Czeck Republic and Slovakia. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about these very special customs:

In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, a tradition of spanking or whipping is carried out on Easter Monday. In the morning, men spank women with a special handmade whip called a pomlázka (in Czech) or korbáč (in Slovak), or, in eastern Moravia and Slovakia, throw cold water on them. The pomlázka/korbáč consists of eight, twelve or even twenty-four withies (willow rods), is usually from half a meter to two meters long and decorated with coloured ribbons at the end. The spanking is not painful or intended to cause suffering. A legend says that women should be spanked with a whip in order to keep their health and beauty during the whole next year.

An additional purpose can be for men to exhibit their attraction to women; unvisited women can even feel offended. Traditionally, the spanked woman gives a coloured egg and sometimes a small amount of money to the man as a sign of her thanks. In some regions, the women can get revenge in the afternoon or the following day when they can pour a bucket of cold water on any man. The habit slightly varies across Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

As I wrote in a comment on Pixie's blog, I very much like the idea that the men take the time to craft handmade whips. Obviously, one can also buy the whips in shops these days, but for me, the idea of men undergoing the ritual to make their whips with their own hands has a much higher appeal.

I think it is the same for me when it comes to my spanking kink in general. Rituals play a very important role there. That doesn't mean that every spanking has to follow the same protocol. And it doesn't mean that every scene needs to be long-planned and elaborate, either. But I like it a lot when certain elements of a spanking are done very consciously. For instance, the act of pulling down the pants and panties. And in my fantasies, the spankings are usually rather formal and ritualistic ones, even though the formalism of the procedure is usually combined with a deep emotional connection between the participants. Finally, although Ludwig and I don't manage the time for that very often nowadays, I enjoy the thought of playing out a well-planned, elaborate scene with lots of ritual from time to time.

The ritual is also one thing that I enjoy immensely when we make spanking clips. Developing an idea for a storyline, sometimes between Ludwig and me only, sometimes in collaboration with others, for instance our readers. The preparations like choosing the right clothes, setting and positions. Setting up the cameras and lights. The introductory part which builds up to the spanking itself. The spanking that is usually very clearly determined in advance (implements, number of strokes). The aftermath of showing off and looking at the marks. The process of editing the footage into one piece. And finally, the publishing and, hopefully, the feedback of those who enjoyed the results.

Unfortunately, I don't have coloured eggs for you, but, as several of you might already have noticed, Ludwig and I already published a free gift for you three days ago. The production of this clip did not only involve our readers and therefore lots of exciting anticipation, but also an implement which I had to cut and prepare beforehand. Ritual galore! After an initial problem with a difficult to handle file hoster and file format, the download and viewing should be very simple and work out without any complications now. I hope you enjoy watching the clip and I would love to hear from you if you did! We are nearing 200 downloads but so far there has been very little feedback from people who have actually watched the clip already.

Whatever holiday you celebrate today or not, I wish you all a wonderful Sunday! And of course you are very welcome to share your thoughts on spanking and rituals. Do you see spanking as a ritual? If yes, which parts of the ritual are the most important for you? What does it take for you to make a scene work?

LOL Day Switching

As I already told you in this post which also gave you a glimpse of the resulting marks, we finally got around to shooting last year's Love Our Lurkers Day clip. I edited the clip as quickly as possible, and here it is!

As some of you might remember, you had the chance to vote whether you wanted to see Ludwig or me on the receiving end of the LOL Day spanking. I got more votes and so my bottom was on the line for the clip. Since we underestimated the number of commenters and especially the number of real delurkers, we offered two strokes with the hand for every recurring commenter and three strokes with a switch for every first-time commenter. That resulted in a total tally of 62 smacks with the hand and 39 strokes with the switch! Thank you very much to all of you who took part.

Since there were so many participants this time, we decided not to read out all the names aloud. We included them as subtitles instead. So, if you want to know which strokes are "yours", you can download the high quality or the low quality version with the subtitles here:

WMV with subtitle file, resolution 720 x 576, 280 MB:

Uploaded.net link

(Click on "Free Download", wait for the counter to count down, then solve the captcha and download the file.)

Once you have downloaded the file, unpack the .zip package and put the clip file and the subtitle file in the same folder. Most video players will then automatically show the subtitles when you play the video.

The switch that I cut was rather heavy and the switching got quite severe towards the end. Switches tend to hurt a lot, but often don't leave intense marks. This one did, though. So this clip should also satisfy those among you who, like Ludwig and me, prefer spankings which are a bit more towards the severe end of the spectrum.

The marks are completely healed by now, though, so there is no need to worry. And, since the severity increased over time, I reached that wonderful state of empowerment that I often seek in my kinky play. We hope you will enjoy watching the scene as much as we enjoyed making it!

Your Questions Answered

March is Q & A month in blogland and so we asked our readers for questions in this post. Thank you very much to everyone who participated! Here are our answers to your questions:

Joey asked: Kaelah, What is on your kinky bucket list? And, have you shared your desire with Ludwig?

Kaelah: One thing on my bucket list is a role-play that involves cross-dressing and in which I am being spanked as a boy / young man. Preferably in a naval setting by a commanding officer, either with a cane or with a whip. This is one of my most precious fantasies. There are two problems, though: First of all, we would need the right outfit. Secondly, Ludwig and I are not very experienced role-players and thus I am a bit scared that the role-play couldn't live up to my high expectations. Ludwig knows about my fantasy, but we decided to wait until we have enough time to prepare such an elaborate scene properly.

Prefectdt asked: You both travel or are travelled to in order to play. Do you find that this lessens or heightens the desire to play? Which of you two prefers to be the traveller, when you get together to play?

Kaelah: I think living in a long-distance relationship rather lessens my desire to play. The reason is that when Ludwig and I get together, having the chance to play is far from the most important thing that is on my mind. We don't travel in order to play, we travel in order to share our lives with each other. During the times that we have together, we try to do all the things that other couples share on a daily basis. Talking about our daily life and our future, going on excursions, eating together, sleeping next to each other, cuddling, visiting friends and family members, watching TV, listening to music and all that kind of stuff. Kink is just a very minor part of that, and since our time together is limited and almost everything has to be planned in advance, I often find that I haven't got enough room in my mind to, for instance, plan any elaborate spanking scenes as well. Of course it depends on the general stress-level and mood, though. Sometimes not being able to see each other on a daily basis can also heighten the anticipation, especially when we manage to plan a more elaborate scene on the phone in advance.

Ludwig: I feel similar to how Kaelah does. I don't think that being in a long-distance relationship lessens or heightens the desire to play as such. But it means that, because you have less time together, you don't have as many opportunities to give in to the desire when it spontaneously arises. Most of the bigger play sessions Kaelah and I do together are planned in advance, and when it comes to those, being in a long-distance relationship can actually heighten the anticipation.

Julia asked: Trying not to be a buzzkill, but do you guys worry about people recognizing you? Or posting pics of you in general? That is what I am constantly worried about. Like my picture being downloaded from all around the world is kind of a scary thought. And Ronnie added: I was thinking the same as Julia. Do you worry about being recognised?

Kaelah: The short reply to the question is: Yes, I do worry about being recognized, at least from time to time, as I already mentioned in my post A Past and Future Secret. But for me, the positives of shooting and posting pictures and clips by far outweigh the risks. First of all, Ludwig and I met through his clip-making activities. Secondly, I get a lot out of posting pictures and clips and the positive feedback that we get. I very much prefer pictures and clips in which I can see facial reactions, and so showing my face is the only way for me to do this the way I want to. I don't know whether I would have decided to show my face, though, if Ludwig hadn't already done that when we met. But since he had, I wanted to be a full part of this, which also meant showing my face.

Ludwig: Publishing pictures and videos was a choice I made very early in the life of this blog. I knew that it entailed certain risks, but I consciously and willingly took those risks because for me, they were outweighed by the joy of doing something creative and exciting together with friends from the Scene like Niki Flynn. When Kaelah and I met and we became a couple, she consciously and out of her own initiative made the same decision, because she wanted to fully share in what I did on the blog instead of being the faceless girlfriend. I don't worry too much about being recognised. There are spanking models whose pictures and videos have been seen by many more viewers than ours, and to my knowledge, nobody has ever been recognised by a random stranger on the street.

Lea asked: What is your favourite flower?

Kaelah: I don't have a favourite flower, although I like roses very much (who doesn't?). If I can choose, I prefer a mixed bouquet, for instance roses, gerbera daisies (preferably in red, orange and yellow) and some green plants as fillers.

Ludwig: I don't have a particular favourite flower. I like the colourful variety of flowers on a wild meadow that has been left to itself, with no human meddling.

Lea's second question was: Have you ever run into a vanilla acquaintance at a kinky event? If so, how did you handle it?

Kaelah: I haven't ever run into a vanilla acquaintance at a kinky event. The closest I came to it was when a vanilla (or maybe not so vanilla) friend who knew that I was into some kind of fetish, but did not know exactly which one, suddenly asked me whether Ludwig and I would visit the Bound Con, too. Finding out that my friend was going there as well was a nice, if unexpected revelation! We have never actually managed to meet each other at the convention, though, since we always went there on different days.

Ludwig: My circle of vanilla acquaintances is pretty small, as is my circle of kinky acquaintances. In both realms, I value quality over quantity. As well as that, Kaelah and I don't go to many kinky events. So, the chance of me running into a vanilla acquaintance at a kinky event is almost zero.

Annapurna asked: How do you handle unfair criticism from readers?

Kaelah: We are fortunate in that we usually don't have to deal with unfair criticism from readers. In the few cases in which unfair criticism comes up, we try to politely clear things up. Because often things turn out to be simple misunderstandings. That can easily happen in written communication. In the rare cases when people misinterpret our politeness as weakness and become even more aggressive, we still try to remain calm but draw a clear line at the same time. Like I did in my post I'm Not Gonna Take It. Fortunately, we haven't ever experienced a situation like that again after I had written that post.

Ludwig: We have a very classy core readership on our blog. On the rare occasions when we have trouble with someone, it is almost never a regular commenter, but a passerby who obviously does not know the blog very well and is only looking to do some trolling and pick a fight. These people disappear as quickly as they appear, and I do not waste my time thinking about them.

MasonPearson asked: Kaelah - are you finding that your kink is increasing/reducing or evolving in any particular direction? can you imagine going back to vanilla?

Kaelah: I think my kink is evolving in the direction that I enjoy switching more spontaneously and topping Ludwig in smaller scenes which aren't planned much in advance. Which doesn't mean that my bottom side becomes less important, though. I very much enjoy the balance of the two. As for going back to vanilla: I can't imagine doing that because I have been kinky for as long as I can remember. I just didn't live out my kinky fantasies because I hadn't found the right partner, yet.

Bob S asked: I have to believe the mood is very different when you are by yourselves and when you are being filmed. Am I correct?

Kaelah: Yes, that is indeed correct. Our private play is more intimate and often more sexual than what we do on camera. The camera makes the setting more formal, which I enjoy very much as well, though. But when we are being filmed (or filming ourselves), the focus is more on creating a good film and less on enjoying the scene while it is happening. On the other hand, the creative act of making a clip adds a different kind of fun and excitement that definitely makes up for the loss of intimacy and direct erotic pleasure.

Ludwig: The mood is different mainly in that there are more things to keep track of when filming, and thus more things on your mind. Handling the equipment, having a look at the footage we just filmed, maybe repeating a shot of us talking - that kind of stuff. During the spanking action itself, I find that the mood, at least for me, is not all that different from what it would be like if we were doing a spanking in private. It's the stuff around that, when we are handling the equipment, that is different.

Donpascual asked: I once had a spanking partner I met on weekends. I had to travel 700 km roundtrip. We kept this up for two years. Question: How far have you, respectively Ludwig to travel?

Kaelah and Ludwig: We actually have to travel more than that! We take turns travelling, so that neither of us has to travel several times in a row.

Are Your Parents Home?

The doorbell rang. I stood up and went to the door. I didn't expect anyone, but I thought that it might be one of my neighbours and so I opened the door. A middle-aged man was outside. He looked at me and asked: "Are your parents home?" The question caught me by surprise, but I figured that he might simply be at the wrong door. Maybe he expected to see a middle-aged friend or acquaintance and now thought that I must be their adult daughter?

"No, they aren't", I answered truthfully. - "It's just, we are selling apples, you know? Home-grown." He hesitated for a moment. "Or, are you already twenty-one? Because then I can sell them to you as well." I smiled. "I am already twenty-one, but I'm afraid we don't need any apples." After a little more conversation, the apple seller excused himself and went on. As I closed the door, I had a grin all over my face. I am used to people underestimating my age. I hated it when I was eighteen or twenty-five, but nowadays I find it cool. Twenty-one, though? Really? That was hilarious, really great stuff!

I think it was good that I didn't buy any apples, though. I mean, I didn't see Snow White's evil stepmother anywhere, but you never know. And since when does one have to be twenty-one in order to buy apples? The legal age is eighteen in Germany! However, of course I had to tell Ludwig the hilarious story on the phone.

And before anyone makes any wrong assumptions: No, when I opened the door, I didn't look like this:

But the idea to shoot a funny adult schoolgirl picture for this post led to a two hour self-photographing session today. Including a self-caning to produce some nice marks. Ludwig would have shaken his head, had he been able to watch my hunt for the perfect schoolgirl picture. Fancy seeing more pics from that set, anyone?

The apple incident didn't only inspire me to take adult schoolgirl pictures, though, it also reminded Ludwig and me of something Ludwig had found out a while earlier. Someone had uploaded the free trailer for The Final Test to a spanking clip site. The title he chose was "Spanking test of young babe with cool ass". And, the clip had been filed under the tag "teen"! Now, being in my thirties, I am anything but a "teen". In official porn terms I am a "MILF"! The title and the label made Ludwig and me laugh a lot, though.

Partnerlook

This is the result from the last time Ludwig and I have been together. It's the first time ever that we managed to take a picture in which we both show off marks from our play! As you can see, Ludwig's stripes are still very fresh, whereas mine are already two days old in that picture.

After a long period with stress-related exhaustion and very little play, this was the first time we had a few rather kink-focussed days together. First, we met a kinky friend for a lovely dinner and a long chat. There was no kinky play involved, but we had a great time, nonetheless! Which becomes quite obvious when I tell you that it was long after midnight when we finally decided to part in order to make sure that we would all get at least a few hours of sleep.

The next day, Ludwig and I finally shot our Love Our Lurkers Day clip. Yes, the marks which you can see on my bottom are from a heavy switch. I'll need a bit more time to edit the clip, but it will be published soon. So stay tuned!

Two days later, Ludwig received twenty-five cane strokes from me. That's the fresh marks which you can see in the picture at the top of this post. We filmed that scene for our private fun, but the clip is not going to be published. You will get to see some more pictures together with a more detailed account of that scene in a separate post, though.

(Our two implements happily united.)

Before we parted, we had another smaller, but more intimate scene. We both didn't have the energy for the long, elaborate scene in our master-slave play scenario that we had talked about on the phone before we got together and I didn't manage to remain in the right headspace during the shorter scene that we did, either. As you know, I am normally not submissive, but I can enjoy a bit of dominance in the bedroom when it comes to explicitly sexual scenes. It is not easy for me to stay in that mindset, though, and this time I slightly failed. Fortunately, I managed not to get angry and so my temporary mental struggle didn't ruin the scene.

By the way, hard handspankings over switch marks hurt quite a lot! I have to admit that Ludwig and I are rather careful with further play as long as marks from a previous scene are still visible, though. In my view, it is better to give the marked skin time to heal completely before playing again. I am quite positive, though, that all marks will be gone when Ludwig and I are going to meet the next time. Then the fun can continue!

Join the Interrogation!

(Pandora interrogated by Tom in Acquiescence. Picture courtesy of Control and Reform.)

Among some bloggers, March is Q & A month. Which means that the readers can ask questions and the bloggers publish their answers on their blogs. Julia, for instance, has just answered a bunch of questions from her readers on her blog. Ludwig and I haven't ever participated in the Q & A ritual so far and we don't know whether you guys have any questions for us, but since we enjoy the interaction with our readers very much, we have decided to give it a try this year.

So, if you happen to have any question which you would like to ask us, you are very welcome to share that question in the comment section or by e-mail. We will collect all of your questions and answer them in a special post. Every question that reaches us until the end of next weekend will be considered. Of course, we reserve the right not to answer any questions which aren't sensible or which are completely unrelated to this blog or which could compromise our privacy, but I guess that doesn't come as a huge surprise to you.

We hope you have a few questions that you would like to share and we are very much looking forward to hearing from you! Let the interrogation begin.

Caned In Budapest

So, after my post about our kinky adventures in Budapest including the toppy teaser photo and the definition of our copyright rules, here they finally are, the pictures from our little caning adventure on the day before Valentine's Day with the cane we kindly got as a present from Pedro, the Mood Pictures producer.

I had just bought the nice black and red corset, too, and what other than a cane and nice lingerie does it take to animate a top to administer a caning? Okay, maybe teasingly presenting both and one's bottom, accompanied by a slightly challenging look doesn't do any harm, either!

Then all I had to do was finding a nice position for the caning. Preferably one that did not only make for a lovely presentation of the target area, but also allowed Ludwig to take a proper swing. I like this one very much.

And soon I felt a rather stingy sensation as Ludwig swished the cane through the air and accurately placed stripe upon stripe on my inviting behind. That very long unpeeled specimen really packs a sting, so Ludwig got some nice moaning, gasping and writhing from me in return for his hard work.

The result was a bottom covered with a lovely set of parallel red stripes. And of course a happy Kaelah, too.

Ludwig on the other hand had the pleasure to enjoy the sight of the result of his handiwork. But thanks to the pictures, he was not only able to savour the view right then. Instead, we can both relish the memories of a lovely pre Valentine's Day afternoon again and again. And, we can share them with you! I hope you like the pictures as much as we do.

Copyright Rules

I've already written a long post about the issue of copyright infringement on Tumblr and other blogs. So, I'll keep it short this time, but I would like to give some update after a few new experiences which I have made in the meantime.

First of all, a while ago I had a very interesting discussion with Abel on his blog about the issue of copyright infringement on Tumblr. Unfortunately, I have come across a few even worse examples than I had seen when I wrote my first post about it.

For instance, there was one Tumblr blogger who posted about fifteen or twenty of our pictures, one after another. It was obvious that he had screened through our blog and saved every picture he liked. Instead of mentioning the source, though, he cropped the watermarks out and added new captures describing what was going on in the pictures from his point of view, using made-up names.

The second extreme example was another Tumblr blogger who reposted one of our private pictures, but linked it to an affiliate link to a professional spanking video producer. In other words, that person tried to make money, using our free private pictures!

These experiences led Ludwig and me to the decision to set up clear rules for the use of our pictures:

You are welcome to use them, but only when giving proper credit (in case of Tumblr that means linking the picture to our original blog post, so that the viewers can see what the pictures really are all about), no altering of the pictures (especially no cropping out the watermark) and no use on blogs which are in any way commercial, for example through affiliate links, except for special cases in which our explicit permission has been given.

Unfortunately, the "do not alter" rule also applies to our fellow kinky bloggers who give proper credit. I know that some of you prefer pictures without watermarks, but unfortunately those get reposted without giving proper credit very quickly. Our friend Stan/E. was the first one who some weeks ago kindly exchanged the pictures he had used in one of his posts for properly watermarked ones.

The rules are quite similar for excerpts from our written posts:

You are of course also welcome to quote from our posts, but again, you have to make sure that you don't change the meaning (quotes have to be verbatim) and there must be a link to the original post, so that the readers can see in which context the quoted statements were made. We generally don't allow that any of our posts are used in a commercial context, except where we have given our explicit permission.

There are also good news as well, though! A Tumblr blog called Captain Posterior reposted two of our hotel room pictures. Not only was the watermark left where it belonged, the Tumblr blogger in question also linked the pictures to our original post and credited us as the original source, just like I expect everyone to do from now on. The result: One picture has already 90 like / reblogged notes and the other one as to date 322 ones! And, since the link is there, not only in the original post but in all the reblogged ones as well, many viewers pop over to see what the pictures are really all about (which also makes it easier to deal with some of the strange comments that are added to pictures by some Tumblr bloggers). So, thank you very much, Captain Posterior, it is wonderful to know that there are Tumblr bloggers out there who care about copyrights and take the time to post a link!

In our next post, we will publish our new hotel room pictures from Budapest, this time also with proper marks. I just hope that whoever might repost them on another blog will take the time to credit us as the source and post a link.