Welcome! Great to hear from you.

Really like your blog. (Readers, click on Gypsy’s name if you want some excellent writing). Stand-out phrase? About participating in “forums where I feel accepted and secure enough to say out loud ‘I like being… treated so rough that if my friends from junior high could see me they’d think I was in an abusive relationship’. Wonderful. Please keep commenting!

Step 2 was not possible as there was no internet – unless you count advert cards in phone boxes near London stations. So jump straight to-

Step 3 Age 24 Respond to an advert. I have never felt so nervous and excited and scared at the same time. Repeat as necessary for the next 20 or so years.

Now go back and do stage 2 – today.

I discovered your blog over Christmas and really enjoyed it and the earlier stories. Thank you for the perfect opportunity to engage with like minded people.

J

(He knows I have a spanking blog but I’ve never quite directed him in its direction.)

Glad it resonated with you and this post resonated with more!

The debate has highlighted so many things I love about the way this blog has turned out: that it’s a place where people find ideas that seem interesting or relevant, a place where people can feel comfortable sharing their own thoughts (even if they’ve not actively posted much elsewhere), and a sense of community (the debate really flying, with comments back and forth while Haron and I were stuck on planes, then too jetlagged to be compos mentis).

So many comments rang bells for me personally, and if the discussion’s helped anyone to work out where they are on their journey, where they want to end up on that journey (different for all of us, whether being part of an active scene, or being able to play confidently with one’s significant other), and to help them summon up the confidence to move to the next step if their journey is still ongoing – then it’s been a great start to our blogging year. Thank you, all.

However I just want to say a huge thank you to Abel,Haron and all the other contributors for this fabulous site.

I love coming here and it has made me realise that my longings are as normal as those of anyone else however different they may be.

Thanks for all the fab stories and for planting the seeds that have given me much food for thought!

Who knows,one day……………….?

H x

Indigo Velvet – Without trying to sound unreasonably optimistic on the basis of not very much information, I think that the advantage of being honest with yourself and your partner (as you said) takes you pretty much halfway to other stages of coming out. It may be impractical or difficult for you now, but sooner or later you’ll get yourself into the position where you can meet up with others and bring your fantasies to life. It’s all working out the emotional logistics, you know? Hope it’s sooner rather than later for you

Lazarina – Lurking is good; delurking is better Despite what it may look like, I’m not brave enough for the public scene either; I’ve never seen the inside of a BDSM club, and don’t really want to, either. But I assure you, meeting a couple of people at a time limbers you up socially, and before you know it, you’ve met lots of people you can play with

Lizzie – coming out is certainly not a requirement, particularly if your partner is the only person you will ever want to play with, or discuss spanking with. The appeal, hmmm… Well, for me, for example, the appeal is to be able to tell my parents where the bulk of my income comes from. They don’t want to know much more than “Yes, mum, I do write for a living, but honestly, you wouldn’t want to read it, because it’s very specialised erotica”, but it helps them to know it. Also, I quite like to be able to leave our books, pictures and toys lying around when people come visiting

Graham – your journey sounds very much like mine, including the bi/pansexual part, and it being somewhat more difficult to figure out.