Here’s the link: https://fetlife.com/groups/29027

Hope to see you there. Over and out.

I’m done with putting this foot down on the ground and I’m ready to pick it up and put the next one somewhere. I don’t know where that will be but it will happen or at least I hope it will. I’ve taken this phase as far as I want to take it and I’ll figure out the next when the time comes. I’ve enjoyed what I’ve been able to accomplish no matter how small and I’ve enjoyed engaging with people and making friends out there. I’ve appreciated every single comment about what I’ve written, even the negative ones, and have always had the utmost respect for everyone who took the time to read my ramblings.

Now that the sappy shit is out of the way, I’m just going to say a few things for the fuck of it. Writing this blog has helped me in more ways than I realized. It’s given me some perspective on my kink, the scene, what I think about it and how importantly I desire to take it all. I’ve gone from moments of elation to dragging my feet through the mud but always coming away learning something about me and my perception of others in the kinky community. Mostly, I’ve slowly moved towards a center, a place inside me where I could feel comfortable enough to be myself. I haven’t reached it yet and I don’t know if I ever will but the journey has been interesting and fulfilling in and of itself. It has made me realize what is important for me and what is a waste of my time.

One of the things it has convinced me about is the fact that I am unwilling to suffer bullshit for long. I know bullshit is an art and lots of people are great and clever artists working in that medium but it doesn’t mean I have to buy into it or wade hip deep in the stuff. Once you know how the Three-card Monty game works, it doesn’t matter how clever the trickster is at cupping an ace because you’re not going to put your money down. There are a lot of folks out there in the scene who play that game like its solitaire except you can only fool yourself for so long until you realize you’re just stealing the same dollar over and over again. You’re standing still and ending up right back where you started when you’re finished. Sure, you might have people standing around enjoying the spectacle of a man playing himself for the fool but once they figure out you actually buy into your own nonsense their laughter is at you not with you. That’s where I am right now. I’ve seen my own bullshit for what it was and now I’m done laughing. That it’s made me see things around me for what they are is a fringe benefit and a double-edged sword. It would be a nicer world if I could get up and go to sleep in fantasyland but it wouldn’t be real. I like real even if it’s ugly.

I’ve said the scene for me is about fun and it is. Every experience I have when I’m playing with someone should be fun and never feel like a chore or that I’m going through the motions. I don’t want anyone playing with me who doesn’t want to nor vice versa. The same goes with the scene at large. I don’t want to be involved in things that don’t bring me pleasure because at its heart what I’m doing is for pleasure. If that makes me a hedonist then so be it but it’s also true of all aspects of my life. I speak my mind because I wish it and because doing so is enjoyable. Same goes with my activities in the political arena. I do it not just because I think it’s important but because it brings me a measure of enjoyment. Same goes for my job. I enjoy much of it and try to deal with the unpleasant parts as best I can. It’s not easy but I can’t ignore that the parts of my job I enjoy truly bring me pleasure. That’s how I’ve come to live my life. It may not be perfect but it’s good enough for me.

One other thing I’ve discovered about myself is that I’m not in a rush anymore. Yes, there are times when I feel old in the scene but more and more I feel a sense of rejuvenation. Being yourself for yourself is not a spectator sport nor does it require a vocal audience. Someone saying, “What do you mean ‘rejuvenated’, old man? Get out the way for the new blood that’s coming up”. Sorry, son, I don’t step aside for anybody, you’re going to have to push me — if you can and honestly, I don’t think you can.

Another last thought and then I’m off. The “drama” in the scene and the “politics” of the scene only have as much power over you as you are willing to give them. Don’t let anyone push you. Don’t let anyone shove you aside. Don’t let anyone act as if they own you and can tell you what to do. Push back and push as hard as they do. Never allow yourself to be intimidated by anyone. Never put someone in a position over you that they don’t deserve. You are in this for your own fulfillment and to walk the path you lay out before yourself. It’s not your duty to make sure that some other person’s road is smooth especially if it requires you to lay down so they can step on you. We’re not slaves and they are not masters no matter what role they play at during the fun and games. Stand up for yourself always. That may require fighting at times but that’s life. Other times it only requires that you laugh in the face of the person trying to intimidate you and watching them fold up like a cheap suit. Tell yourself every day that nobody tells you what to do unless you agree to it and for a good reason. Thus sayeth the monkey.

And with that…as a long time coworker of mine would say, “See ya. Wouldn’t wanna be-ya”.

UPDATE

You know, I never really listened to the words that closely so anything that might have a negative connotation in this song — just forget that part.

This particular post was going to be completely different than the one you are reading now. Like many others I’ve written, it remains a draft because I was unhappy with the direction it was taking which was too negative. So I’ll take those thoughts and weave it into something a tiny bit different.

I hate feeling obligated because I have far too many obligations in my life already. Some are willingly undertaken like those involving my wife or my friends. Some are undertaken under a certain amount of duress like my job. I don’t want to add yet another layer of obligation onto an already stressful life. Doing things because I want to do them is the only way I want to live my life especially my personal life and the spanking scene is no exception. I want to write because I want to write not because I feel I have to write. Any compulsion I feel towards doing anything should come from a desire within me not from any other stimulus. At least that’s the way I live my life.

I don’t know if it’s selfish to say, “I’ll do what I want when I want to do it”, but it’s the reality of the way I feel. This is the way I handle my scene relationships as well. I play because I want to play not because I feel obligated to play. I may not get to everyone I want to play with and often I don’t much to my chagrin. However, I don’t do things by rote and have no desire to do them that way. I don’t provide charity when I play — I play because I like it. The same is true with my feelings about creativity. I don’t ever like feeling I need to be creative to meet a deadline because it sucks the enjoyment out of it. I enjoy writing because I want to write. I enjoyed doing a couple of videos because I wanted to do them not because I felt I was making a career out of it nor out of a desire to prove anything about myself. My personality precedes me wherever I go not because I’m embarking on a campaign to be “famous” in the scene (whatever that means) but because that’s me. Any, let’s say, notoriety that comes from being out in the open is peripheral to just traveling my own path no matter where it takes me. I’m not saying I don’t give a shit although I do affect that attitude on occasion. I’m just saying that I’m secure enough to walk my walk without having to prove anything to anybody — even me.

That might be part of the reason I’m backing off this blog and eventually moving on to some other thing. I got too wrapped up in worrying about how many hits I was getting on my homepage and that’s not the way I want to enjoy the things I’m doing. Nuff said for now.

When I started this blog, I had every intention of presenting the unadulterated truth without restriction. That idea lasted for about two seconds. The reality of writing here was always that I often offered opinions and observations but with a certain veneer. Some might find that funny because they see my writing as going directly from brain to page but that’s not the case. In between those things have always been filters and usually several of them working to massage the message.

One thing that I decided not long after starting Radspace was that I wasn’t really going to to be specific about scenes I took part in or play partners I engaged with. For lack of a better term, I’m not the “spank and tell” sort. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that sort of writing and I see plenty of it online — heck, I even enjoy a good amount of it. It just wasn’t my intention ever to point out my play partners or to potentially embarrass them by revealing details of play. Perhaps it was a too guarded way of writing and these folks would not have minded being lauded for good play even if it was in an anonymous sort of way. However, I always figured that the anonymity of the play would be shattered because some people would know who I happened to be playing with at a particular time and place. We all know that once one person knows something it won’t be long before one million people know it. That said, it did limit me. I couldn’t write entertaining or titillating tales of spanking play so I settled on perhaps merely touching upon these things and spending the rest of the time pontificating with opinions.

Opinions are strange things as well. I speak my mind as often as I can and there are a lot of people who see me as an unfiltered fountain of facts, thoughts and one-liners. The truth is that these aren’t unfiltered although my filtering system might be extremely specific rather than applied in a blanket way. There have been times I have felt strongly about a particular subject often because it was something that bothered or offended me. I’ve written many drafts of blogs focusing on these things only to leave them unpublished and likely deleted. Ultimately my reason was cowardice. That may be a harsh assessment but I can at least be unfiltered in my opinion of myself. Because of certain life lessons stemming from negative incidents, I have grown to see things in a way that encompasses the Big Picture. I may have a problem with a person, group, organization, etcetera but is it really worth it to disrupt things just to express it? I prefer a smooth path ahead of me and since I’m married have to take into account that any negativity I generate because of my opinions can affect my wife as well. No matter what we think, the scene is a pretty small place. I’ve tried very hard not to create too many enemies because I want to continue participating in the scene and, presumably, so does my wife. There were times that I did express an opinion that pissed off enough people to turn into a mess. Trust me, I learned from that in no uncertain terms. I will honestly say that there were certain things that happened that made me say, “Fuck this bullshit” and were the beginning of the end of my desire to continue with this blog.

I don’t have time in my life for anything that causes me angst because I have enough of the self-inflicted kind to require therapy. I don’t need it added to in any way, shape or form. Part of that angst is feeling that this blog became a god damned lie because I was holding too much inside rather than letting it out. It would be cathartic to do so but also conceivably catastrophic. As a self-proclaimed coward, I chose the path that was easier to take but ended up being a double-edged sword and a frustrating one at that. It didn’t help that all of these feeling came at the same time that I was going through several years of family issues including the deaths of parents and a sibling. Put all of that together and it just became too much bullshit to deal with.

So there you have it. Honesty is a tough thing to put out there because it exposes a lot and allows a lot back in. I am in constant amazement at those bloggers who can write about their experiences in the scene especially those that are intimate. For the time being, I cannot and will not do that. Where does this leave me? I guess shutting this place down is where.

This was not a sudden decision but one that has become rather inevitable with the dearth of posts over the past year. One of the things I want to say right from the beginning of this extended good-bye is that it is not due to some kind of scene “burn out”. I love the scene, love the spanking fetish and continue to enjoy most of the things that surround it. No, I compare my time here on Radspace like writing a novel or series of books. I might keep going to fulfill yet one more contractual obligation but eventually the further adventures cheapen the whole by being hack work. It’s much better to write as much as there should be but provide an ending so that the reader walks away somewhat satisfied — that’s what I’m doing over the next group of posts.

Although I’ve spent a good amount of time writing variations on the theme of spanking, it is only recently that I’ve found that I’m repeating myself. You readers have not seen it because those posts were never published due to my dissatisfaction with the product. It’s not that I’ve said everything there is to say about the spanking scene or the fetish nor is it everything that I want to say about it. It’s just that I’ve said everything I’m going to say for the moment (more on that in the next post). However, my recent focus, at least for the past six months, has been politics. Some of you who are my friends on Fetlife have probably noticed that I spend much of my time in the group called “Politics”. I’ve also become a fixture on several sites where I leave lengthy comments and engage in conversation with a community of web activists (i.e. the Netroots) about my liberal/socialist/Democratic interests. I’ve always said that politics is my sports and that’s become very true. There is just too much at stake in these strange and troubled times for me not to be involved. Some of my scene friends may not share my political leanings but like most things in life, I really don’t give a shit.

I’m not retreating from the scene or the fetish because I’ve enjoyed it too much to ever let it go. I’ll still be co-hosting the Paddles OTK Night Munch and going to the club afterwards. I’ll still be going to parties and other events. I’ll still be engaging with people in real life and online — I just won’t be doing it here anymore. I’ve already done so many of the things I’ve wanted to do over the past few years including appearing in spanking videos — something I wanted to do ever since seeing a spanking film loop back in my teenage peep show days. For this bit of enjoyment I’ll forever be thankful to David, Pixie and all the folks at Punished Brats. It was the most fun I’ve had in front of a camera since ever and allowed me the chance to play the role of construction company owning “spanko mobster uncle”.

I didn’t start doing this because I wanted to be “famous” (whatever that means in the spanko world). I just wanted to have a good time and make friends — to be able to walk into a party and have people be happy to see me. For the most part I think I’ve been blessed with that very thing.

Anyway, this long goodbye will continue next time and I guess to the end of the year when I will bid you all adieu. In my next post, I’ll talk about some of the things that have frustrated me about writing Radspace and about being part of the spanking scene.

I go to these events with her not just to be supportive of her but because I enjoy being with her no matter what we’re doing. But it’s more than just the support, I’m getting something out of it too. The BDSM scene has fragmented in recent years with spankos going this way and other sorts of lifestylers going that way. The Internet has been a great resource and communication medium but it’s also created a system where people can explore the minutia of their kinkiness with others of the same stripe with relative ease. It’s a phenomenon I’ve seen in the music world as well. Back in the bad old 80s and 90s, the popularity of micropublished “zines” took off. It wasn’t too hard to find a zine that catered to your personal taste in music to the exclusion of all else. If you liked hardcore (from hatecore to straight edge), thrash metal, avant garde rock or a hundred other sub-genres, you could always find a zine that talked about it and provided a link to artists and other folks in the community. The Internet made it easier by putting it all at our fingertips. Right now, spankos can go online and find a treasure of information and links to others who enjoy what they do. The bad part is that this ability to focus on the specialized corners have made the communication lines within the overarching BDSM world less secure. If people can do what they like to the exclusion of everything else, why not just ignore all the rest.

This is one of the reasons I love going to events like the one last night. It gives me the opportunity to meet people in the scene that I would not get to meet if I just stuck to “my thing”. That would be a shame because I would not have met some of the wonderful people I met last night including one domme who was kind enough to let me try out one of her canes and even to show me a technique for caning that I was not aware of. The munch before the event was pleasant and filled with adults having good conversations about whatever we felt like talking about. My wife went to scratch a particular itch but afterwards we took our place on the stage where I got the delicious opportunity to cane, strap and tawse her to her, my and hopefully the delight of those who were watching. Lots of fun playing, watching and conversing with folks and all because I did something that would normally be out of my comfort zone.

I’m a firm believer that kinkiness is just kinkiness with the edges sort of blurry. I’m a spanko but that doesn’t mean that other things don’t intrigue me or pique my curiosity. As a male top, I’m always fascinated to watch female tops or dommes do their thing — you never know when you might get a few pointers out of it. Rope bondage is a good example. I don’t really do it nor know a lot of techniques beyond a double knot but it’s always interesting to watch some of the elaborate rope tricks that people do. The intensity in the faces of the participants as well as the meticulous care they take with their craft is wonderful to watch. Although everyone has their own comfort level when it comes to being around other kinksters, I think there’s a lot to be said about stepping outside of it every so often as a mind-expanding exploration. That’s what I did last night and benefited from it if only by having a good time.

It has recently come to my attention that I’m shitty at giving warm ups. Even though the concept of a warm up is subjective and differs from person to person, the consensus is that a lot of folks I play with prefer the slow ramping up of intensity especially as the first event of a particular day or evening. Maybe I’ve just been used to playing with people who have been previously warmed up but I did not realize that I was spanking that hard from the beginning. Perhaps my frame of reference is off about what “hard” really is. I suppose it’s like eating a bowl of chili or some other spicy food. One person’s medium might be another person’s hot and another person’s hot might be someone else’s impossible to digest.

I have to think on this for a bit which of course means I have to worry it to death. Am I spanking too hard from the beginning? How come I’ve not noticed this all the time I’ve been playing? Have people just been polite and not said anything about it or has something else changed. Maybe I’m spanking a lot harder than I used to; I don’t think that I am but it might be possible. Maybe warm ups bore me — could that be it. For someone like me who is a hard spanker, the warm up, although painful, might feel like playing pattycake to me. I make no secret about the fact that I like to play hard when I can but maybe what I consider hard is at the level of impossible to digest for a lot of players.

I will definitely have to lose some sleep over this one.

My desire and love for spanking is part of what I am. It doesn’t matter how I indulge it or what side of the equation I choose to fall on, it is always there and something that makes me feel whole and fulfilled. But right now there is something looming on the horizon that is so significant that I can’t stay silent about it even though this blog is not a political one per se. However, we are all political animals. As much as we might want to escape into our own fantasy worlds, we are still part of the real world where consequences have an effect beyond a sore bottom or corner time.

The poisonous atmosphere of American politics right now is dangerous to the well-being of this country. I am talking about a movement firmly planted on one side of the political spectrum that seems hellbent on crushing the life from all people who don’t fall in line with its thinking. It is a politics of selfishness that has its roots not in the organic soil of the people but the contrived and manufactured toxic fertilizer spewing from corporations and the top percentile of income earners. This phony “movement” threatens our lives in a direct way and is something that I as an American, let alone one whose personal life is on the fringes of acceptability, can not ignore. The right wing in America have become a dangerous beast which seeks to devour everything in its path.

Their desire to crush dissent is obvious when you see a woman knocked to the ground, kicked and punched all because she dares to have an opinion. Their desire to control the lives of others is obvious when you see human beings in love forbidden from expressing it for fear of violence or kept from formalizing their relationship the way millions of their fellow citizens are allowed to do. You see their elitism and racism when laws are passed that can put women and children behind razorwire fences all for the crime of having a darker skin and a desire for a better life. It is painfully clear how disconnected from reality they are when they side with their corporate oppressors against Americans who struggle on a daily basis to simply survive or keep a roof over their families heads. Their insanity is most naked when they fill their rhetoric with lies about a president amidst violent fantasies of guns and violence and death. This is what I feel the need to stop. This is why I involve myself in politics even if it is to make sure I enter the voting booth on Election Day. This is why I educate myself as much as possible about what is going on around me and strive to wipe away any veil of ignorance that may be in front of my eyes. This is why I care.

I make no apologies for expressing this on my blog — it is my place and my choice to write whatever I please. I feel the things I’ve written here most deeply whether they are about my hand against naked flesh or movement of ersatz fascists who seem oblivious to what they foment and oblivious to the future they are helping to create. If what I’m saying bothers you then leave. Don’t come back to this blog because I don’t want you here. If you think LGBT people should have no rights then get lost. If you think that the poor are poor by their own laziness then get lost. If you think that putting our trust in the rich to somehow shower us with their largesse is the right course for this country then go and don’t come back. Delete this bookmark, unfollow me on Twitter, don’t talk to me when you see me unless you are willing to have a reasonable conversation. If all you have is ill thought slogans derived from the mewling of a radio talk show host with no facts to back it up — don’t talk to me because I have nothing for you but disdain and pity.

Election Day is coming and I know what I’ll be doing. If you still want to come here, I’ll be talking about spanking after that. Peace.