8 June 2015

#SpankA2Z The letter F is for... Face Slapping.

I must admit I started this month's blog hop A-Z challenge with no clear idea of whether or not I'd even stick to any kind of theme... but, as is so often the case, one seems to be appearing without my conscious involvement.

Where I am at this point in my life and development is leading me to a lot of self-reflection and exploration, and I suppose it's therefore logical that at least some of that would make it into this, my blog. 

Some authors put on a 'face' for their readers/fans, and every word they say on social media is carefully constructed, designed to increase sales and strengthen their specifically chosen image.

I'm not one of those authors.

In this, as in real life, I tell it like it is. I'm just me. Yes, I write fiction, but that's pretty much where any exaggeration, bending of the truth or just plain fantasy begins and ends - and even then, I can't hide myself. I wouldn't want to.

With that being said, this blog challenge is also making me start to explore subjects I hadn't really considered thinking about before. And I'm enjoying it. 

In real life, I like to experiment... one of my favourite mottos is: I'll try anything once. Twice if it hurts. And I don't shy away from many of the more extreme BDSM practices, even though most of them will never make it into my books, which are, after all, primarily romantic spanking erotica. I wouldn't want to frighten anyone. 

However, this isn't one of my books, this is my blog, so I think it's a great place for me to a) examine my own opinions on some of these practices and b) get your opinion on them. I do like to hear what others think about stuff - I'm a very curious little Tabby-Cat, after all.

Which brings us to today's post: face slapping.


I chose this subject because it absolutely fascinates me. And it does so because I'm so incredibly ambivalent about it. 

If I'm watching a movie, and a guy slaps a girl in the face, my instant gut reaction is a mixture of disgust and horror. How fucking dare he? It's violent, it's derogatory, it's insulting.

But it's for those exact same reasons that, when a Dom does it to me (when I'm in the right headspace, mind you, not just coming up to me and whacking me across the face while I'm washing up), I melt. It puts me into the most submissive but most liberating frame of mind - one I'm not even sure I can explain properly. 

I'm forced to ask myself: why? It's not the most painful thing anyone can do to me, nor the most insulting, nor even the most humiliating. But for me personally, it's just so incredibly taboo.

It goes against everything I've been taught as a girl who was born in the late twentieth century and now lives as an adult in the twenty-first. It goes against everything the man who's hitting me has been taught. It's Just. Not. Done. Men who do that are scorned and reviled (and believe me, I am not advocating it unless done with full consent and prior discussion within a D/s or DD or whatever relationship), and seeing a man slap a woman hard across the face is (and should be) enough to have any sane onlooker calling the police.

And still I get off on it when it's done to me. 

Case in point: I just searched and searched for an image to insert here - an image where a girl/woman is having her face slapped. I would have settled for a nice old picture; a movie still perhaps, from back in the day when it wasn't quite as taboo to slap (or spank) your woman - but I came up completely empty. There are, on the other hand, loads of pictures of men being slapped in the face. By both men and women.

Was there ever a better illustration of a double standard? I have never, ever, ever slapped a man - or a woman, come to think of it - across the face or anywhere else, for that matter. No doubt it's partly because I'm naturally submissive and a pacifist, but it's also because I have respect. I respect people - even in a vanilla setting. I've had partners cheat, say horrible things, mistreat me terribly, and still I've never even considered slapping them. 

So seeing a woman do it to her boyfriend or husband provokes the same reaction in me as it does when the genders are reversed... revulsion. Physical violence should never be the answer - to anything.

Well, at least, not without consent.

What are your thoughts? Is it something of a trigger for you? Do you like the thought - or, for my fellow lifestylers, do you enjoy it being done to you (in the relevant setting, of course).

Please feel free to comment away - and don't forget to hop on over to the other blogs. 

~ Tabby x



2 comments:

  1. Sorry this is late, I just read it. I HATE face slapping. I've never had it done to me while playing, maybe it would feel different in that situation, but I have a hard time with it. Even just reading it. Last year the Hero slapped the Heroine across the face, it upset me so much I contacted the writer--who I know. I just had to say "Noooo, you didn't!!" I had been appalled and had to express it--later the author made it better--there was internal dialogue regarding the act and I felt better. But man-oh-man, I wanted to just say done, click end that book.

    After having some very bloody lips from face slapping as a child, I think it's a complete trigger for me. I'm sure I'm not alone, but after all the spankings you would think that would be a trigger. It's odd. I think face slapping is just humiliating and mortifying.

    I'm glad you asked. No one ever talks about face slapping.

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  2. How did I never see this comment until now? I'm so sorry you were slapped that way as a CHILD. No wonder this is a huge trigger for you. For me, it's being tickled. My father never knew when to stop and my mother always had to intervene when we started to turn blue. So I cannot handle being tickled in any way, shape or form.

    So I get it. I absolutely do. And I thank you for your honesty and your input. And again, I hope you 'got' my message in the post about consent. As a child, there's no way you could have consented to what happened, and I'm so sorry it resulted in such a nasty trigger for you. *hugs*

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