Recap: MBS Sunday Brunch for Mar 28

Our topic of the week examined the practicality of walking away from one's spanking interest. Here are your responses.

Sara: No way, no how could we walk away from TTWD. For us, this is not a hobby or some form of entertainment, but truly a chosen lifestyle that goes way beyond spanking. I think, if we stopped TTWD, it would be the death of our relationship. Now a time could come when spanking is physically impossible, but the basics of the D/s dynamic will live on I think.

Prefectdt: From practical experience of trying to give up I can honestly say NO! Giving it up resulted in a lot of problems for me, that ended up with a large amount of professional help having to come my way. It was my psychologist that talked me into getting back into spanking (best advice ever).

You know, over the years, I have heard a lot of people talking about giving it up. I think that if you feel that is a path that you have to tread, then give it a go. But if you are wise, you will not burn any bridges, just in case you need to return from where you came and most likely you will be back.

Hermione: I'm wondering what prompted the man to make that statement. It sounds like what someone says when they're addicted and can't stop or walk away from the substance they are abusing. I consider spanking to be neither harmful nor dangerous, either to myself or to anyone else, so I have no need to make such a declaration.

If it happened that because of illness, injury, separation or other external factor, we were unable to continue with TTWD, I would be unhappy and perhaps distressed. But I would not choose to have it so.

I suppose if something else took on greater importance in my life, and forced me to choose, then I might have to decide to walk away. But outside of the (unlikely) decision to take a vow of chastity, I really can't see that happening.

RPT (Fred Bloggs): No. It really is that simple!

Jean Marie: I agree with Hermoine in that I see no harm in spanking for either party, but I disagree with her in that I feel I am addicted to being spanked. I could not walk away from it. I don't have an addictive personality; I gave up caffeine, though I love coffee. I tried coke several times and easily walked away from it. I crave being spanked, however. It is a part of my sexuality.

Poppy: Sure, I could walk away. But I would be sad, half myself and useless at most things that I do.

It is part of my sexuality and more than that, it is part of who I am. It helps me to be happy, to be confident. It's how I feel loved.

I would walk away and be found curled up somewhere. Silly man that could walk away from it and be happy. What was he doing here in the first place?

BabyMan: I am persuaded that there are three critical decision making moments in TTWD: (1) She is forced to look at herself and decide, "Is this me?" This probably happens first. (2) You both are forced to look at yourselves together and decide, "Is this us?" That came next for us. And (3) You, the individual man, is forced to look himself square in the face and decide, "Is this me?" I don't mean deciding whether this is FOR you, but rather, whether this IS you. Once you experience all three of those moments, whether concurrently or separately in any order, and you decide this IS you for all three moments, you have reached the ''point of no return.” Say goodbye to your old life. Stick a fork in yourself. You're cooked. I'm cooked.

Irelynn: I've never tried it, but I think that if I had a good enough reason to, then yes, I could walk away from being spanked. However, nearly all of my friends in the UK are people who are active in the spanking scene. I suspect it would be hard to have the same kind of friendship with them if we constantly had to avoid the topic of spanking. Not that I don't love all of them as people, but for many of us, it has become a rather big part of our lives. It's simply part of who we are, and avoiding the subject would just feel artificial.

Naomi: No way! It is my way of life. It is part of the woman I want to be, and stopping would kill a piece of me.

Anon: Someone who could say something like that was never really serious about it in the first place. It's not a "thing" that can be dropped like last week's garbage. It's a lifestyle.

Daisy: If there were a reason that we could not spank any more, we would still think of it, remember it, talk about it, and fantasise about it (as indeed we do, since we spend so much of our lives apart).

However, there is still a power exchange and discipline in our relationship, Davey still manages to check me, despite the distance!

As for choosing to walk away from this, I don't think that would happen. If we couldn't spank, we would still be "us." Spanking is one of the enhancements of our sex life/relationship, it is not the foundation of our love.

morningstar: Sometimes the "walking away" is not a choice. Sometimes it is chosen for us.

Just over three weeks ago, I was uncollared (the whys and wherefores are not important). The point is that I was forced to walk away.

I can say that I don't miss it, not one little bit. But I am busy dealing with pulling my life together into some semblance of normalcy.

Spankings were something I craved before I found THE man to give them to me, so I suspect the need is still buried somewhere inside of me. They are a part of who I am, as much as my blue eyes, cheeky attitude, and gray hair.

So I for one do not understand the ability to "just walk away."

S.N.M.: I could do it. But it would take a lot of self control, and I wouldn't be happy.

Todd and Suzy: I could. I could jump off a bridge. I could do lots of things. Walking away from spanking, if you're talking about not doing it anymore, yes, I could do that. Doing so would be extremely difficult though, and I don't believe either of us could give up thinking about it.

I wonder, BTW, why someone would brag about being able to walk away from spanking with ease. It kind of sounds like a big time hint that spanking never really was their thing.

R Humphries: I personally doubt very much that I could ever ‘walk away’ from the spanking element of my life. That being said, in an earlier incarnation of RH, I was involved in a long and successful vanilla relationship. We did explore my spanking fetish, but it did not work for either party so we set it aside. However, I did not completely walk away from my interest in spanking. I continued with my life-long passion for writing and interacted with a number of discrete friends from the London scene. In my subsequent relationship with my wife Jojo, spanking is an important contributor to our lives both sensually and sexually. Like every family, there have been times when the physical act of spanking has been just impractical. But the subject always remained prominent in our stolen moments of privacy.

So, no, I very much doubt that I could walk away from such a major and satisfying part of my life. In fact, I always assume that in our dotage, Jojo and I will sit on our porch in rocking chairs cackling over our witty spanking banter. The downside to this plan is (1) I’ll need to build a porch and (2) I’ll have to buy some rocking chairs.

Florida Dom: This is like saying you can walk away from who you are. It's like walking away from being left-handed or right-handed, or walking away from being straight or gay.

Even if you're not in a relationship, I think the fantasies and desires are always there. I think this is the way the people in this lifestyle are born. The need can be suppressed just as vanilla people can live without sex, but I think it's always lurking there somewhere in your psyche.

Loki: There is no way that I could ever walk away from this. From as far back as my early teens, this scene and this lifestyle have been a part of my life. For me to leave, it would maim me all the way down to my soul.

Bonnie: Jannette sent me this quote because she thought it seemed very odd. I completely agree. For those who live this kink, walking away is just not an option. All of us will eventually find circumstances that curb our ability to play, but even that won't change who we are or what we like.

The man in question may experience second thoughts about his interest, and there's nothing wrong with that. We must each seek our own answers. However, like many others here, I have all the answers I need, at least for these questions. I'm a spanko and I always will be.

Thank you all for joining us!