Tuesday, April 28, 2015

The Submission of Emily Marx

There is a sub-world of film making that caters to soft (ish) porn to be shown to late night cable tv audiences who have paid for such titillation, but not as much as those who have paid a subscription to a premium sexploitation channel which - I am told - offers more explicit views of the human anatomy.

As you will be acutely aware, in the spanking genre the mantra is 1) there is going to be a spanking, 2) there is a spanking, 3) there was a spanking - with lots of words and/or video to expand each of those three elements.    The mature adult film is not dissimilar - just a different outlook.   Which gives it a mantra 1) There is going to be an orgasm 2) There will be an orgasm   3) No - hang on a bit, there really will be an orgasm- honest.  4) There was an orgasm.   5) Lets repeat all of that for those who were not paying attention the last time around.

The plots of Mature Audience films tend to be extremely simplistic of a "Hey, you look cute - let's make out" with the only major variation being the backdrop.

Sometimes a plot tries to explore new grounds.

Which brings us to a Mature Audience film called "The Submission of Emily Marx" currently going the late night rounds of cable tv for those too cheap to pay for a premium sex channel - rather like me.

The driving force behind S of EM is more your mainstream BDSM adherents and - due diligence disclosure - you may know more about the hardcore BDSM scene than I do.  In this film, Emily is getting a mild disciplinary paddling in the opening scene (exceedingly chaste and un-erotic) repeated in the closing scene.   Between the two extremes, she gets spanked once, and gets a quick belting once.    The rest of the time she explores the nature of balls, plugs, wax and ice etc, etc - with a bit of bondage thrown in once for good measure.    Being for the Mature Audience viewer, lots of time is given to (almost off screen) oral sex, with a bit of doggy style to show we are in the realms of the more adventurous.  And there is a lot of monologue by Emily explaining why such abnormal behavior turns her on so much.

The basis of the plot:  if you cannot enjoy a normal sex life, and you crave a supply of orgasms, then become a pervert and accept the consequences of letting some guy do what the hell he wants to do to.

The consensual side of the equation was that Emily was given a BDSM contract before they started, and she had access to a safe word if she wanted to up and off from any more of his perversions.

I have no idea who Jacky St. James (credited as the author) is in real life - but she does use that name on her twitter account - and kudos to her for doing research into what people in a BDSM relationship actually do.   But I really wish she had spent more time researching the "why" we do it, and the real life mechanics that happen before and during a relationship,   "Your sex life is too mundane?  Here, sign this BDSM contract and see how much it improves." might possibly have been used as a successful pick up line once or twice - but surely only as a very rare exception and never as a rule.

If you want to show some aspects of TTTWD, you really need to get your ducks in a row first.   Or all you will do will be to alienate the community and be seen as trying to foster the lie to the rest of your audience.  The lie?  That, without exception, we are narcissists and raving sex perverts.

Monday, April 27, 2015

Is it really still a dirty little secret?

A curious case has hit the news media from a town in North East England.

A guy used the internet to make a date with a stranger who after the briefest of briefest meetings claimed she had secretly filmed the spanking she had given him, and please would he lend her (the equivalent of about) $75 not to post it to Facebook?

He did pay up , but made a discrete complaint to the Police.   The ensuing court case resulted in her getting a one year prison sentence for blackmail.

I kind of suspect that if all they had done was kiss and cuddle, the blackmail attempt would have been equally successful, with a similar final outcome.

But I have a nagging doubt.

Back in the 60's and 70's the biggest threat to military secrecy in the NATO countries was homosexuality.   Not that homosexuals were treacherous cads, but because if the soviets could prove you were of a homosexual persuasion, you would open any safe in order to keep your secret private.

Admittedly, back then, being homosexual was very likely to result in public disgrace and even a prison sentence.   By criminalizing a natural condition, the Western alliance handed the Soviet Union a very strong tactical ploy to learn our battle plans, should it ever come to a shooting war.

Through a different mechanism, we spankos have set ourselves up to be very sensitive about our foible.    Most of us spent our formative years in the false belief that we were the only spanko in the world, and that the worst thing that could ever happen to us would be for our secret to be revealed to family and friends.   Prison was not an option - but maybe a lengthy stay in some mental health institution.

That shared feeling was so strong that surveys suggest that about 80% of us still try to keep our spanko tendencies from all but our very closest and trusted sex partners.  And for 20%, even close partners are never told what really turns one of us on.

There is much anecdotal evidence to suggest that the 20% or so who make no secret of the spanking side of their psyche have suffered in any way whatsoever by revealing the fact.

Which suggests that the other 80% of us should not carry what we seem to think is a dirty little secret. It opens us up to blackmail scams, no matter how futile such scams may prove to be in the long term..

Yeah - right.   Having made a case why you should go tell everyone your secret, you might point out that I continue to sit behind a nom-de-plume in order to keep my privacy intact.   And that is not a case of moral duplicity - it is an admission that I also am still possessed by a need for secrecy that I inherited from our shared false belief;  one that persisted and gripped me throughout all my formative years.  Irrational fears are the hardest ones to shake off.

We really don't have a dirty little secret - its just that 80% of us still cannot shake off the notion that it is one.  May be we should set up an annual "Coming Out" day so that we could continue to help each other to put an end to our fears that we have something to fear.  How about July 1st?   As a real one, not one of the prank ones that are floating around the internet...


Friday, April 17, 2015

No laughing matter?

Bar-keep Robert Askins made a minor splash with his first comedy play "Hand to God".  The theme of the play (which made Broadway) is that a puppet in the Christian Puppet Ministry has been possessed by Satan and its foul mouthed urging for all to revel in sin is played for laughs.

While retaining his full time job as a bar tender, he has found time to turn his talents to the world of spankos - in particular, those who opt to live within the tenets of Christian Domestic Discipline.  Indeed, the promo from the MCC theater has the two lead actors do nothing other than face the camera squarely to quote from genuine posts to a leading CDD blog. 

The premiere of his new production is scheduled to take place April 29, but I am unable to commute all the way to New York to attend a performance.    Should you happen to get to see it, a quick review would be very welcome.

But what will the play actually be like?   Well, we spankos are nothing if not thick skinned (its a side effect from getting one's butt whacked on a regular basis).   But one rather hopes that those who get to see the play, find that he is laughing with us, not at us. One thematic element is said to be the problem of who actually holds the spanking paddle - so it could go either way.

And, frankly, anything that moves the media away from a 50-shades mentality is to be welcomed.

Thursday, April 16, 2015

The Games people play

The number of gamers in the US has risen from about 50million in 2008 to over 130 million at the last count.   And, by all counts, one third of Americans have some degree of enjoyment from spankings, and another third are "tolerant" to "very tolerant" of the third that actively enjoy.   Which suggests some future tussles may lie ahead between the two populations.

The omen is a new Japanese video game called "Criminal Girls Invite Only".   The somewhat curious title is probably because of some robotic translation from the original Japanese, which may have had a much clearer semantic about it.  

A hugely popular "niche" game in Japan, a version aimed at American gamers reveals two distinct schisms:  the way Japanese view spankos, and the way American gamers view spankos.   Or to be fair, the way American reviewers of games view spankos.

In the game, the player has to find seven sinners - all portrayed as teenie-somthing barbie doll-types who have sinned.    As each one is found, a spanking is given.   The more spanks and the harder they are in the time limit set for this activity, the more powerful the resultant warrior princess who then goes off to do battle for the good guys in the standard style of martial art gaming fantasies.

The first point of interest is that the game has been modified for the American market.   Spankings on this side of the Pacific take place behind a purple veil, with the yell sound track turned off.   Puritanized, if you will.  While the Japanese are far more ambivalent about real life corporal punishment than Americans, they have been warned that American gamers are really turned off when it comes to spanking females.

American gamers may revel in doing very bad things when "playing" their games, there are limits.   Shooting a cop with an Ak-47 - wow, what a power rush:  but spanking for pleasure?  What do you think we are.

Well, the game reviewers are pretty much in accord when it comes to paddling a rump to power up a ninja:   "Almost sex exploitation"- "Shallow" - "A game for the pervert market".

Really?    Yes, really- those aer actual quotes.

We seem to have three alternatives:   The gamer population and the spanko population have virtually no over-lap:  but will have when both camps increase in numbers.   Japanese gamers find much more fun in having a spakning element in a game than the their American brethren.   USGamer reviewers are off their rockers, but carry sufficient sway to convince overseas developers to sanitize their products to meet the prudish morality of American gamers.

I suspect all three alternatives are wrong.   And when the American gamers find out what their game reiviewers have done to make a harmless foible into something to be hidden and/or reviled, those gamers are going to be very, very cross with the reviewers.

Friday, April 10, 2015

Musings on Outlander

The premiere of season 2 of the Starz original bodice-ripper attracted about 1.2 million viewers - making it a mega hit in premium channel statistics.   And, according to those who claim to know such things, 62% of that audience were women, making it the biggest hit ever for Starz for that particular dynamic.

Unless you have been living in a biosphere as part of your conditioning for some future Martian space voyage, you will have already heard that the episode contained (shock horror spoiler alert) the spanking of the heroine by her husband.   A non-consensual knock-down rough and tumble, until the punishment required by Scottish lore of the 17th Century was carried out --within earshot of the menfolk of the clan.

And that gives us insight into one of the more interesting quirks of our quirk - the spanking was not really, really non-consensual because it was given to an actress who was only pretending to put up a fight.    She was, if you will, a willing victim:  and we spankos do love our willing victims.   The most watched and re-watched spanking videos are those in which the recipient acts as though she is really not enjoying one second of her ordeal - but because we know that she is, it is ok for her to pretend not to, and her pretense notches up our enjoyment a tad or two.

If you have followed the comments section of various articles published covering the stars of Outlander discussing the spanking scene, you would have gained a distinct impression that lady viewers were putting up with it for literary and historical accuracy - and with emphatic distancing from 50 Shades.  And yet the viewing figures tend to hint that the scene was eagerly absorbed with the same rapture as any other bodice ripping hereto before.

The actress pointed out that it was not a real leather belt - but whatever it was made of, it was firm enough to cause impacts - and without being quite as viscous as a leather strap, will have certainly imparted a noticeable sting.   And as she said, despite all prior planned choreography, once the camera started to roll, it quickly got very physical.   I take it that it was planned we should get to see her bare bottom, otherwise those clips would have been edited out.

So, all in all:  more realistic than Keira's pathetic attempt to portray a genuine spanko, less erotic than Maggie being a secretary, and far less painful than Maureen getting her rump soundly bruised by a small coal shovel.   On par, say, with Donovan's Reef (a real spanking in the name of art) or Blue Hawaii (ditto).

Which, by my way of thinking, makes it very acceptable.    Even if it did have to take place within earshot of the menfolk of the clan.