Each day in September, I will be posting a question about submission, along with two responses- the first written five years ago and the second from today. I welcome all who wish to join in this exercise to post your own answers in the comments, adjusting the question if necessary to suit your own roles and sensibilities.
Is sexual availability, being available to your partner any time he or she wants, part of your submission? Why or why not? Are there limits to this?
2012 – Public
At first this question made me apprehensive. Reading Poppy’s response helped. The relation of physical availability to the same kinds of transformation achievable through punishment helped. I love the idea of this goal- of being available to one’s partner physically and mentally. The physical availability seems like a perfect extension of the intimacy from more mental forms of submission. In theory and fantasy, this is definitely something that I want, but I know I too often get caught up and stressed with the rest of life.
2012 – Private
This makes me really uncomfortable. Even vanilla sex makes me a little squeamish. (Maybe a side effect of abstinence training? Or just exposure to general puritanical views on sex.) I hope it’s just an age/experience thing. I haven’t had any negative experiences, just a general aversion to all things sexual. On the bright side, it helps explain my reaction to spanking references in casual conversation, as most people who know me know that I clam up when anything sexual is mentioned. Strange that I feel perfectly comfortable reading spanking erotica, right up until there’s explicit sex. Even if it’s very poetically described. I just have no interest at this point. I hope I grow out of this. . .. I’d rather not spend the money on therapy, and I’m certainly not becoming a nun 🙂
How does one deal with spanking before sex? How does one find a partner interested just in the spanking bit (or maybe interested in both, but willing to table the other issue for the time being). The thought of the kind of people who may be looking for that scares me. But then there’s DJ. I need to know that people like that exist. I need to have that as a point of reference so I don’t go throwing myself at someone unsafe. I’m lucky to have made it this far relatively unscathed, and I need to be cautious.
My future partner will need to be patient with me on this. I do want to try, I’ll just need a bit more time and communication. I realize that’s a lot to ask of someone, particularly as I’m not sure if this is something I can get over or not. I hope it is- I have no problem indulging myself, just the idea of doing so with a partner makes me. . ..quiet? scared? timid? I’m not quite sure what this is, just that I really want to get over it. I feel like this probably sounds like I’m a little kid- still in the “boys are icky” stage. Maybe I am in ways. I want to deal with this, but I may not be ready. Right now, I’m dealing with the spanking/submission part. I think I can handle that for now (took long enough to get there- not ready for the next challenge yet). We’ll put the sexual aversion thingy on the to do list for once we get over what we’re dealing with now.
Call me a prude, but thinking too long about this question kind of turns my stomach.
***
2017
“One day you’ll be old enough to like it.” My parents would trot out this line every time I turned up my nose at vegetables. I thought this was just a psychological ploy (which it was, no doubt), but I had to admit to them later that my tastes had indeed changed. I do like broccoli now. A lot. Particularly when doused in cheese. A tray of roasted peppers is one of my favourite snacks. I look at salad now as a meal, not a form of torture.
Sex though. . . ick. Maybe one day I’ll be old enough to like it, but not in the foreseeable future.
I wish I could go back, though, and tell 2012-me to relax. I wish I had known then that finding a partner for sexless spanking was a far easier feat than I’d imagined, that once I started looking I would find plenty of lovely people all too happy to help with the spanking bit and not at all bothered by my lack of interest in sex. I wish I had known then that I was not the only one interested in spanking for spanking’s sake and that – far from being a presumption – many of my partners would never even mention sex.
And I wish I had known that my aversion to sex was far more common than I’d imagined, and that rather than being a factor that would isolate me that it would become a way to connect with others. For anyone in the same boat, I’d highly recommend the Asexual and Kinky FetLife Group, which has been the source of some of the most fascinating and friendly discussions I’ve found on FetLife.
Though despite all I’ve learned and tried since I’ve started attending events, I still have no interest in sex. It’s not for lack of exposure, lack of options, or lack of ideas; play events are great for that sort of thing. However, being spanked to the sound of squelching has not sparked any desire to squelch along myself. (Quite the opposite, but the spanking was nice enough for me to ignore the squelching from the couple(?) in the next cage.)
I still won’t rule out the possibility of my tastes changing, but it’s no longer a priority for me, it’s no longer something that I worry about. I’m very grateful that I’ve found partners who will not insist on combining spanking and sex. However, I suppose that makes this a good indication of true submission for me; if I am willing to be sexually available for someone, I would be willing to do almost anything for them.
Acknowledging Imperfection 