I don’t understand how anyone can have this much spanking in her life as I have recently, and still have room for other things, like books, theatre, relationships and, you know, keeping the house vaguely tidy.
Looking back on my November, it’s hard to miss the fact that, out of four weekends, three of mine were taken up with large scene events: the Regency House Party, Shamrock spanking party, and the Finishing school. (On the spare weekend, my boyfriend Jimmy came to visit, just in case you worried I had too much spanking-free time.) All these things came about in one month purely by chance, but the fact remains that I appear to be a very busy girl. Also, I just can’t deny any more that I am, in fact, not a lone spanko who has some lovely spanko friends, but part of something called “the scene”.
I have long resisted thinking of myself as a “scene” player, because, in my mind, I couldn’t be: I’m a classic introvert, and I’m profoundly shy. I don’t enjoy playing with people I don’t already know, either as a bottom or as a top, and it takes a lot of cajoling to make me meet new people. In fact, while I *think* about spanking all the time (as witnessed by this blog, in fact), I’m quite content with only a tiny amount of real-life play. When you take these qualities all together, what you get is not necessarily a description of a scene person.
It turns out that the scene experience is not the same for everyone, because there are just so many things you can do. Even if you don’t do some of them, it doesn’t make you less of a scene player – particularly once you’ve hit a certain critical mass of stuff that you do, in fact, enjoy. There are clubs, munches, fairs, expos, large parties, tiny parties, play dates, vanilla outings – and then there’re blogs, forums, FetLife, SpankoLife, and oh my dear lord, Twitter. (@adelehaze, btw) So many ways to be part of the scene – and missing some out doesn’t disqualify you.
Realising this has helped me a lot. Turns out, it’s OK to not enjoy clubs, and turn up at parties for the company rather than play, and sit in the corner observing while the surreal festival roars around you, and take weeks off, and talk about Harry Potter in the same breath as you talk about making spanking films. It’s not other, cooler people who decide whether you’re scene enough.
Once you make friends, the scene sucks you up, and before you know it, you don’t have a single free weekend in November.
It’s all about friends. There’s a surprise.
“Once you make friends, the scene sucks you up” – as someone who before Halloween didn’t have a single “scene” friend I corresponded with on a regular basis, I need to completely second this. In fact about a week ago I got a little overwhelmed, it just felt like suddenly there were things happening all the time – in a good, but also kind of… maybe frightening is not the word but a little scary? way. From zero activity to activity EVERYWHERE and ALL THE TIME and most weekends – and that’s only because I made good, trustworthy friends REALLY quickly, and THAT is only because those same people were so willing to be nice to someone new and scared.
But literally, about two weeks into it, I’ve been sucked up on two continents. I’m going to have a December like your November, skipping Christmas of course, and I’m astonished by it. And then again I’m not: because I met people who, despite the scene, I really liked as people first. And that was that.
It’s funny, I was shy and a total introvert UNTIL I found the scene. Once I found the newsgroup and realized that there were all these people who thought about spanking as much as and in the same kinky ways I do, it took less than a year before I went to my first party. For a person who always tried to blend into the woodwork before, I dropped my pants without a second thought to get spanked in front of a room full of people. LOL
Well said that girl! Funny how it can take over once you make the initial breakthrough, and often that breakthrough means making only one key connection before a whole world opens up. At least there are still five nights a week for the Rest of Life during the busy times though!
This is a great post and really love how you sum up the scene: ‘Once you make friends the scene sucks you up’. I’ve always felt that. When I was new I went to everyhng I could to play and to try meet people. The more I made friends then it became about getting to see those friends, whether that was a kinky or vanilla event.
And LOL at your November, a mirror image of mine, right down to when you had Jimmy visiting, I had Abel over here. November certainly was quite a month!
Hmmm, I didn’t get spanked at all in November, and I still wasn’t able to keep the house tidy. I’ll have to work on my excuses!
i loved this, a very good summary. Ditto, ditto and snap!
Can I just say how much it tickles me that all the responses on this thread are from women?
(Not to say men aren’t welcome, but I just love female friendships that emerge in the scene.)
LOL I’ve been trying to think of a suitably interesting response to this, and can’t. Other than to say that I think this is one of your best posts – really interesting and insightful, my love.
xxx
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