One of the best things about the Punishment Book, in my opinion, is that among the eight of us authors, we have a lot of years of scene experience. Some of us have been part of the online community from its earliest seeds. Some of us are regular party-goers. Some of us are well-respected authors. All of us have spent years coming to terms with our kink: running from it, refining it, chiding ourselves, feeling the warm rush of acceptance (from ourselves and others), nurturing others, relishing it, and living with a strongly empowered sense of identity.
And after all those years of struggle? Ta da! We're all accomplished scene advisors. We have individual web sites and all contribute to this highly respected blog. Which must mean that we're all completely over the insecurities of this kinky identity, right?
Wrong!
I had a kink insecurity crisis a few weeks ago, and Natty just posted about one recently.
I guess this shows that we can think about discipline/spanking, talk about it, write about it, and live it out in relationships, but we will always keep wrestling with it. In many ways this seems like a good thing: we still find new edges to push and new territory to explore, we are not blasé or bored with this wonderful gift. But when I'm going through those pangs of insecurity, that rush of "I shouldn't need to be spanked for this because I'm an adult and this kink feels wrong anyway," I don't feel confident or authoritative. I just feel vulnerable.
So why am I posting? Because I know that I share this periodic struggle and vulnerability (in different ways) with all my fellow authors here and I know that we are all honest enough to admit it. And I firmly believe that this is the Punishment Book's greatest contribution to the online community. We are real women, working through this kink in different stages of different relationships. We love ourselves, we love each other, and we mostly (sometimes) love this crazy thing we have for being spanked, for being punished.
Even when it's hard.
