When Vanilla says...

I hope its not unpolite to just join the conversation, as my English-skills are moderate and I'm rightfully shamed as a sluggish commentor on my librarycard,
but i actually dont think, that TTWD is just an itching obsession, that you cant anyone expect to scratch with you without consent, for me its rather a sexual state, that people can only consensually share.

I wouldnt go so far, as to subsummise kink into the debate to end the discrimination of gender-queerness, but I do believe kinkiness to be very fundamental to a person.
So if this sexual state is not recognised in your own family, it puts you into a rather unhealthy emotional dissonance.

... Which isnt becoming better just because to endure this dissonance is morally correct, or a smart life choice (when you depend financially on a partnership e.g.), or you have to stay in the closet for the sake of your Kids. Because they only can be in contact with sexuality and omnipresent sexual references as long its vanilla (Harrison Fords forced moviekisses are way worse, than two embarassed parents explaining the flogger in the box under the bed)

Of course noone should coerce anyone into sexual activitys, which they dont want to do. (actually just to talk someone into an Sex-Acting, which is not meaningful to them and having your kind of sex, without sharing the sexual state, is spoiled in its own way)
Of course every able mindet grown up can freely chose to engage in a sexual activity, which he doesnt Enjoy, just because someone persuadet them. (there is no perfekt Match out there, but lots of middleground between people, who sincerely try to love)

And of course it can be too late to expirience another complete and complex sex life.
But its never too late to end the emotional dissonance. And become identic with oneself.

... Well maybe i sound too full of myself, or too serious about it. I really sympathize with OP!
Cause you really are entiteled to be recognised in your identity, but youre really not entiteled to be in a relationship / with another person.
But a merriage kind of promises both.

I hate bullying and manipulation, but where is your evidence that the OP is guilty of either? Instead of being condemned, he should be applauded for having the courage to raise an important issue which is of interest to a great many people.

I can only re-iterate that persuasion is a perfectly normal and acceptable part of human interaction. It's only when it goes beyond reasonable limits that it becomes coercion or abuse.

To take a less emotive example, suppose my (imaginary) wife developed a strong desire to emigrate to Australia, but I told her I didn't want to go. Would she be obliged to give up at the first hurdle? Of course not. She would have every right to try and persuade me, perhaps by encouraging me to find out more about Australia or to go there on a holiday with her. If after all that I still said no, then she would have to accept my decision, because I would have the stronger argument which was that I never signed up for it. But it might still be possible to reach some sort of compromise such as her going to Australia on her own once a year. I see the spanking issue as being very similar.

I've always envied those of you fearless enough, early in your lives, to have prioritised your spanking fetish when seeking a longer-term partner - or lucky enough to have stumbled upon that person. Even though I've had the fetish since early childhood, the shame surrounding 'paraphilia' (thanks for that new word, JessicaK, nasty as it is) led me at first to conceal it from partners. And even when I did later find the courage to confess, I didn't feel I could or should prioritise that part of myself when seeking love - I enjoyed sex, I told myself, so I should be content with that.

Pre-internet, I also assumed that finding a matching fetishist partner would be utterly impossible - it was inconceivable to me that such a woman could even exist - and so I entered a series of loving relationships which didn't include spanking. Which was fine, but this aspect of my sexuality didn't disappear; instead it created a degree of separation in my relationships, acting as a proxy for my 'intimacy threshold', my fear of deeper union.

In recent years (with a million words of spanking fiction under my trusty belt), I've certainly indulged the obsessiveness of spanking. It often feels as if it has a uniquely obsessive quality. Is it in fact more obsession-inducing than any other form of sexuality (or fixation)? I don't know. But I do know that the more I choose to read/watch/think/talk and play with it, the stronger the obsession becomes. I know people who've had to step away so they don't go crazy!

So the point raised in this thread about whether it's a 'need' or a 'want' or an 'itch' seems to me just a matter of semantics. Spanking is as important to you as you choose to make it. That isn't to deny its undoubted power, or the intensity that power can assume when one's desire remains frustratingly unfulfilled - it's to say we must acknowledge responsibility for our thoughts and feelings, and for our choices (however long ago, or now regretted).

Deciding in middle age, after years married to a 'vanilla' spouse, that you've GOT to start being true to yourself, throws up the can of worms this thread has been grappling with. Like Alan, I think it's unhelpful, even a little callous, to say "Well, you should have thought of that earlier, shouldn't you? What the hell were you thinking? Suck it up, buttercup." It may be true - and don't we know it - but it ignores the pall of shame and separation many of us weren't conscious or brave enough to escape in those darker, curtain-twitching days of sexual secrecy when we happened to be getting hitched.

Now where did I put that ticket to Australia?

I can just second what TEM is saying. Human relationships are about so much more than sexual preferences, and if we expect to get everything right before we enter one, we run the risk of living alone to the end of our days. Growing up in the pre-Internet days, I had no idea where to find a woman with the same sexual interest – or if such beings even existed (I think there are still feminists who deny that they do). As much as I can envy today's young their easy access to everything, I am not sure their situation is that much easier – the choices still have to be made.

Thanks The English Master. Maybe it is a generational thing but your posting hit the nail on the head for me. It has also made me think about my intimacy threshold which is no bad thing.

I think one of the greatest ironies of life, is an author who is dismissive of semantics.

Semantics being the meanings of words, their sense and implications.
For instance, "paraphilia," Truly a nasty word, especially when we don't understand the meaning of it. Let's look at it's meaning; "philia", like bibliophile (which means someone with a fondness for books: biblio (books) phile (fondness)) so philia expresses a fondness, and para. Now what's word segment similar to para-normal. By itself, it refers to the odd or unusual. So paraphilia, refers to the fondness for the odd and unusual. Of course that's a clinical word, and most people have a disdain for clinical words; they are so... antiseptic. Another word for paraphilia might be "kink," or "fetish." Those aren't words we mind, are they? Lets try a different term; deviant! Now THERE is a truly sick, and repulsive word!!! Of course, when you say "a deviation of course" it means you have taken a turn to something sick and repulsive, right?!? or does it just mean you have taken an uncommon turn?

Obsession. There's a trigger word if ever I'd heard one.
By definition, it means "an idea or thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes on a person's mind." Wait a minute... I didn't see the words "need" or "necessity" in that definition? Curious; that. It's almost like obsessions aren't equal to air, water, or food. But we are more than just animals, we need love, and human interaction. Ahh, but then we are back to those annoying semantics. What is love or human interactions, and do spankings fall under the purview of love, or obsession?

I think that is defined by if you control your obsessions, or if your obsessions control you.

I find it amusing that Alan keeps trying to manipulate Jessica's words into bullying the OP, when she has never addressed the OP pointedly, but mentioned "advice" pointedly and by reference a couple times. But, I guess that's more of those semantics though, because it deals with "implications" on both sides of the discussion.

For the record, I'm a baby-boomer generational. For me the internet came... much later. I am neither fearless, nor is my life to be envied. Not only did I have an obsession with spankings to wrestle with, but I was also hypersexual (that's the unisex clinical term for Satyriasis (old school male version of nymphomaniac)). So, you might say, I had to wrestle with two obsessions in my life. This hardly means I've experienced great amounts of sex and spankings, au contrare. The few times I have been in relationships, it usually culminated in my being referred to as broken, or that there is something "wrong" with me.

Yes, Jessica, some of us (me, pointedly) feel we are broken (and maybe sometimes immoral). ((No, I'm an adult, "big boy" and didn't feel you were singling me out, but your words help in the discussion))

Does this make me a "force majeure" for having two obsessions while most in this thread have more than likely only one? Hardly, but I think it explains why I think I'm more than qualified to speak about obsessions.

As Alef mentioned and to use his words as my own, "(I've) run the risk of living alone to the end of (my) days." There isn't a minute of my life, where I've thought "if I didn't have these obsessions, I might have lived a normal life and married someone long ago." Let me paraphrase a common saying, "it's better to have loved, and been loved, than to have never been loved because of your obsessions."

In other words, I envy being married to a vanilla, even if that meant never to have delved in these obsessions.

So, I hope this explains my 7) Suck it up, Buttercup comment and where that mindset comes from.

Another way of saying all of this is, The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

Wow. Talk about taking a quote out of context! Or just turning it into something that wasn't said as "advice" but rather an observation about Vanillas and how they have historically bullied for intercourse. ( Don't you find having your words twisted repulsive?) I don't believe in bullying for anything, Jessica. My point was not to feel like TTWD is any less worthy of indulgence than any other interest just because it isn't the 'hallowed intercourse' of the vanilla world.

What this thread demonstrates is first and foremost how much depends on our possibilities, our goals, and our attitudes. My own choices have been based on the perception of myself as a totally average person with a rather high threshold for physical intimacy. I have never been able to pick and choose women, and at the same time I have always needed to feel emotionally and intellectually close to somebody to engage in a physical relationship. The obvious consequence has been that I could never expect to have many sexual relationships, and that I had to take care of those I was able to have. To wait for somebody with an interest in spanking seemed an impossible gamble, especially before the advent of the internet. Although I definitely regret not having been able to «play» more, the prospect of an old age with wife, children, and grandchildren definitely seems to make up for it. But other people have had other possibilities, other goals, and other attitudes, and are, I hope, as satisfied as I am with the outcome of their choices. As they used to say: You win some, you lose some...

Well put Alef. I am also pretty average.

Well most of me is and that me had a very loving long relationship with a women, one relationship that has resurfaced after four decades and a small number of other short lived relationships which I put down to experience (I am sure they do as well).

The other bit of me has had many men as sexual partners and explored the highways and byways of corporal punishment during ten years in later life. All achieved without being unfaithful which I put down to my longevity.

Regrets? Not really. I am just subject to the eight worldly winds of gain and loss, pain and pleasure, fame and disrepute, praise and blame. All are evident on this thread.

Ironically I too would say I'm pretty average, having a current wife, ex-wife, two biological kids, three 'steps', a grandchild, house, yard, etc., but I've also had spanking in my life since I was 19...within multiple relationships, not just a single, lucky fluke. Relationships and spanking are not mutually exclusive. It's all about choices and making what you want to have happen, happen. There are like-minded people out there......of both genders....... which this site is solid proof of.