kdpierre:
Personally I find the spanking of children or teens to be inappropriate and feel spanking should be relegated to consenting adults. The issues of consent and how people find themselves on the different sides of the spanking equation are key themes in my stories. There is no way I would write anything that expounded the opposite and yet that was the consensus among the comments. My story presented a situation where the adult male in a home was subject to disciplinary spankings while the kids in the house were not. In my case I lean towards male submission but fully understand this same arrangement could be M/F as well, the key being that only the consenting adult in the home is being spanked....not the kids. Several commentors wanted the opposite.
kdpierre:
They clearly felt each character should have behaved and been treated differently than they did and yet the opinions on what "should" have happened ran opposite to how I view this lifestyle. In fact, the suggestions, though made sincerely, actually upset me.
kdpierre:
Imagine reading comments describing a character based on someone you know and love describing them as a "nasty little bitch" when the intention was to portray mischievous manipulation rather than cruel conspiracy. Or to see a character based on one's own lifestyle choices that accuse that character of being a "spineless wimp".
kdpierre:
In this case, I think there is nothing to do but accept the differences and remain true to oneself....even if it pisses people off. However, it does show that comments, no matter how sincere are to be taken as such: comments, opinions. Regardless of one's audience, an author should remain true to themselves....even if it is unpopular.
If it's the story I am thinking of (Schoolgirl's Spanking), I can see things from both sides. I'm one of the people who commented on it, and, though I can see your point, I don't think my - or MOST (maybe not all, though) of the other ones - were too off base. I liked the story quite a bit, and said so in my comments at the time.
As far as how you reacted to these comments, I think there are a few things at work here. First, a lot of people feel that spankings should in some way be "justified." Not necessarily an eye for an eye kind of thing - i.e. the length and severity of the spanking doesn't have to be in line with the crime, it could be more or less than what is deserved - but that bad behavior should result in a spanking, if the individuals in the story have agreed to that form of punishment. So, in your story, Jim - the adult - gets 2 justified spankings - even though he is not completely to blame for the second one, while Cindy - the "mischievous" teenager - not only escapes a spanking, she gets to hear Jim getting his rear reddened twice, and all of Jim's burning embarrassment that goes with it.
Many of the comments (including my own) didn't have a problem with Jim getting spanked, but wondered why Cindy didn't get her due as well. She obviously baited Jim, knowing what would happen. One could argue that she was initially trying to be nice, and maybe having a little girlish fun with him, and wasn't necessarily being mean or bratty - and that Jim's curt response was what made her become a bit more than just mischievous, at least moving towards mean, looking to make Jim pay with is rear for his sullen response to her. I can see that point of view. But even if that is true, to the mind of a reader looking for "deserved" spankings, if Jim got a severe one, than Cindy deserved at least a mild one, since her teenage reaction to Jim's sullenness was not very nice.
You explained in your comments that you don't believe in children/teenagers being spanked, and that's a good explanation for why Cindy didn't get a spanking in the story. But I don't know that your beliefs are so evident in the story. The closest I can find is a reference to Jim's first spanking, in which the narrator says that anyone who heard the spanking was glad it was "reserved solely for Jim." When I first read the story, I didn't understand this to mean that the teens in the house NEVER got spanked; at most, I would have thought they never got spanked when there was anyone else around. At one point in the story, Nancy even calls up and says "one more outburst out of you two and you'll both be sorry." Since the reader already knows that Jim has been spanked, the inference drawn from Nancy's comment could be that both Jim AND Cindy will be spanked, if they don't both settle down. More than anything else, I think that is why many people so freely commented that Cindy be spanked as well; they did not understand that you as the author - and by extension, Nancy - didn't believe in teens being spanked.
The other thing I think is going on is more general, and not limited to your story. LSF members all have been asked to comment more, which I think is a good thing. But some commenters, wanting to say SOMETHING, but perhaps lacking anything better to say, (and I am sometimes guilty of this as well) simply describe plot elements, or say "I liked when such and such happened." Similarly, many also will read the story through their own filter, and suggest to the author what should have happened, or what a character should have done, but didn't. Sometimes there is a legitimate basis for this; for instance, if a character in a story is described as having certain traits, but then, all of a sudden, turns into someone who does something completely foreign to those traits, the reader might be justified to say that the character should not have done such and such, but instead should have done something else. (BTW, I don't think this was true on your story – your characters were consistent and true throughout). So, while its occasionally legitimate, I think this type of comment is more a case of the reader indicating his or her own preferences, rather than truly "commenting" on the story. So, I wouldn't take these comments too much to heart, or worry that you might have "pissed" people off with whatever lifestyle choices you prefer in your stories. Your stories are good, and if you don't find a comment helpful, or worse – if you find it somehow offensive or mean-spirited – just move on to the next one, which will likely be better.
One last thing, from my own experience as a writer here in the LSF, which may have some relevance to your posting. By design, many of my stories have an element of humor in them. I've written a couple of stories in which I wanted the (usually female) characters to come off as mischievous and fun-loving, with their worst offense (in addition to delivering rear-reddening spankings) to be teasing and embarrassing their (deserving) "victim" via the spanking. I find stories like this amusing to read, so I like to write them as well. But in a few of my stories, several commenters indicated they saw the spankers in these FFF/M stories to be sadistic and cruel instead.
These comments initially surprised me, since I didn't think I wrote my characters like that. So, I reread the story, and guess what: I could see where those commenters were coming from. If read with a certain mindset, my characters WERE a bit cruel. From MY perspective they weren't, but from another perspective - perhaps from someone who doesn't share my affinity for F/M spankings, or maybe didn't think the male in the story quite deserved what he got - the characters were cruel instead of sassy, mean instead of fun-loving, sadistic instead of mischievous.
I won't say that those comments made me change how I write; I'm not sure they did. I think it' has made me a better writer, more attentive to an audience. I still write the same types of stories, but now I scan my stories for those types of character traits, and I try to imagine someone else reading them, and see how my characters sound. I think it's given me a little more insight into spanking stories in general, and not just the ones I like to read and write. My advice is to continue to write what you want, and what you like. Listen to the comments, and try to learn from the most valid ones, but don't take any of them too close to heart. Most of the people here are nice, and I don't think any of the comments are meant to be personal, even though they may sometimes feel that way.