Editorial: It's Not Up to Me

This post is my opinion alone. I don't intend to tell anyone else how they should think or what they should believe. If these topics upset you, offend your sensibilities or make you feel uncomfortable, I am sorry. I invite you to click the back button or simply direct your browsing elsewhere.

I regularly cruise around the web searching for new spanking-oriented blogs. Along the way, I encounter many different sorts of places - clever places, seedy places, confusing places, gross places, and beautiful places. Through these travels, I sometimes gain a feel for what is important in and around our community at the moment. So it was last week.

I witnessed dozens of scalding attacks on domestic discipline blogs and especially those that advocate CDD. The attackers were from outside our community. Most assume that DD wives must be abused and controlled by their violent and dangerous spouses. Never mind that these very women speak out in favor of their arrangements. They must have low self-esteem we are told. Never mind that these wives volunteer that they asked their husbands to act as head of household. It's some sort of Stockholm syndrome. It has to be. No one could ever want to be spanked.

I recognize that domestic violence is real and a major problem in our society. I don't for a minute minimize the damage it does every day to our families and our society. But let's not start a war over a case of mistaken identity. The difference is consent. Without it, we have a crime. With it, we have an act of love.

The common thread in all of these attacks is that paternalistic do-gooders are convinced that they know better what is right for a couple than the couple themselves do. They hold to a belief that their world view is superior and therefore should apply to everyone.

I am not in a DD relationship. That's our choice. But I have no right to tell someone else that they shouldn't incorporate DD into their lifestyle. It's not up to me.

Lest you think I reserve my venom only for liberal half-wits, let's move on to what I believe to be a closely related topic. I see the same sorts of arguments against same sex marriage. Critics believe that gays and lesbians should not be allowed to marry essentially because it clashes with their own values. They don't wish to marry a same sex partner, so no one else should either.

As with DD, I reject this viewpoint. The vast majority of people are smart enough and aware enough to know what they want in love and in life. Even if they get it wrong, and inevitably some will, they have the right to follow their own passion, instinct, and judgment.

I'm not in a gay marriage and I don't imagine I ever will be. That's not my preference. But other people should be free to do as they wish. Once again, it's not up to me.

When will we as a society finally resolve to quit trying to protect people from themselves? Not soon enough...