Recap: Spanko Brunch 2.0 for April 14

This week we discussed inaccurate assumptions made about ourselves or others.

Anon 1: Of course, initial assumptions are pretty much always 99% of time wrong.

Anon 2: My longest term spankee had me alarmed by first picture she sent me. It was from the front and her wrists looked so tiny, I incorrectly assumed her bottom would be insufficient to take my spankings. I was delighted to find myself wrong when we met.

Graham: Indeed. Some folks will draw conclusions from seemingly anything. Our current tendency to communicate by emails and texts is a poor substitute for talking in person, and that also applies to business and other important communications. Of course, in person communications on sensitive issues like spanking and sexual preferences is not practical in many, if not most, instances. As they say, it is what it is.

Dan: I think that people who aren't in F/m relationships sometimes assume that because I am in a relationship in which I receive disciplinary spankings from my wife, I must be submissive or meek in other parts of my life. Far from it.

With respect to whether I have been in error in assumptions about someone else, I'm sure it's happened more frequently than I think. The specific example I can think of is that when we first started with F/m disciplinary spankings, I assumed that most of the men who were seeking it were dominant personalities in their daily lives and that they were attracted to being on the receiving end of a F/m discipline/spanking relationship because they want to give up some of the control that went along with their dominant/Alpha personalities. I now believe that belief was based on a small data set (a limited number of guys I had interacted with on-line), and also a fair amount of psychological projection on my part, i.e. I assumed that because I fit that profile, others did as well. 

Sage: When I first started reading spanking blogs, just a few months ago, I thought every spanko except me was into punishment. Because that seems to be what most of the writing is about. Was glad to find out I'm not alone being into erotic spanking and stress release spanking.

Communication is difficult among humans in general. So we shouldn't be surprised when sometimes it isn't clear. It's super easy to misunderstand one another.

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” ― George Bernard Shaw

Bonnie: Yes, definitely, many times. I describe who I am on my blog, but guys (it's always men) want to write to me without even reading the summary.

I'm a happily married and monogamous spanko grandmother. I'm not a top. I don't play with anyone but my husband. I'm not a young girl nor have I been one for a very long time. I don't sell my panties. I don't know anyone who will play with you in a town 2000 miles from here. I don't do 1:1s. I don't sell photos of my butt or spanking videos. No, you can't come over. I may be submissive, but I'm not your submissive. I don't want to FaceTime. And I really, really don't need to see your revealing selfie.

I am willing to exchange email with just about anyone, especially if it's about our favorite subject, but please show a little courtesy.

Wendel: Amen Bonnie. I fully agree--except that part about being a grandmother, a girl and the whole panties thing for erm, you know, obvious reasons. I did ask the Misses once if I could sell her panties and I did not sit for a week.
Seriously, This is the only spot where I post anything. If I did post or if the Misses posted we would not care what anyone thinks. We do our thing and enjoy it. 

Prefectdt: Yes, but it is mostly a historic problem for me, pre-internet days, when meeting someone face to face was often the first time that you got to know anything about them. It is worse when I am suited and booted, but has happened at other times too. Some people would presume that I was a disciplinarian rather than a submissive. Just something about my appearance, I suppose.

KDPierre: The worst experiences I have had, which were frequent enough to indicate that this is a trend among folks locked into a power dynamic mindset, and not a fluke, are the assumptions that one's role equates to the validity of their opinion or their knowledge, with Tops of both genders being treated by the subs of the opposing gender as though anything they say is like genius advice written in golden script while opinions of subs are dismissed as irrelevant. This is pure nonsense and it is demeaning and infuriating to have subs turn on other subs just so they can appear to kowtow to the resident dominants. Being a dominant doesn't make you right, being a sub doesn't mean you should just shut up, and being in a power dynamic relationship with one person doesn't mean one is submissive to anyone and everyone who feels like calling themselves a Top.

On my end, I have made assumptions on whether people are who they say they are, that may or may not have been true. Online no one will ever know, although in a couple of instances later slip-ups and revelations have confirmed my assumptions. These assumptions are based on a gut feeling that arises when reading certain things that just don't sound like something a person of that gender would say. But again, unless some instance later reveals the truth, we often will never know, and as I admitted, it is quite possible that I have been wrong about some people. 

Sage: I think that one thing that makes communication about sex or romance so difficult is that sex is infantile. I don't mean for kinky people. I mean for everyone. Who truly understands anyone else's infantile fantasies that their sex & romantic life is about? Who of us truly understands our own ways of feeling cared for and secure when treated in certain ways that don't necessarily make other people feel cared for or secure? 

Roz: I would say undoubtedly yes. Online communication rather than face to face always has its limitations and we have a tendency to only share snippets, especially with such a intimate topic.

Hermione: Within the last group of people I worked with, I would have been considered a domme rather than a sub. They would have been amazed to know I was a submissive spanko. 

A.J.: "...has anyone ever made inaccurate assumptions about you, or treated you differently, based on the role you told them you were in?"

Actually, no. But I'd have to think about who I ever told of my "activities" outside TTWD, if they too were not into it in some form. I'm too private about that, and so were my partners (in fact, more private than me.)

More surprising to me was my thinking THEY were weird or obsessed about it, bordering on perversion (Who LIKES to "hit" people?), and my finding - they were all very nice people! Who simply happened to like spanking from either side of the lap.

And Sage, "...every spanko except me was into punishment"?

Nope! Not me, and not any of the women that played with me. We were all interested in the erotic fantasy of it, most of the time leading something sexual, or wanted a stress release spanking.

I do remember the first time my GF, feeling a lot of stress from work, one day asked for a spanking, but this one was to be HARD. A REAL spanking so her mind might get focused elsewhere.

I told her, "No." I can't do it and wouldn't like doing it.
She asked again. And again. And I relented.

I quit about a minute into it. She felt it!!! And I saw it. And I saw her bright red bottom! I asked her what her feelings were, and it was, "Well, I'm not thinking about work anymore!" while furiously rubbing her tush.

That was on a Sunday afternoon. The next day she was at work and nothing had changed. A spanking was not going to change the reality at her place of work.

We stuck to fantasy/erotic spankings. Welcome to the club!

Things are seldom what they seem,
Skim milk masquerades as cream. - Buttercup

 

Slava Ukraini
Glory to Ukraine