One rant I’ve never understood, although I’ve heard it several times, is about the word “play”. Some people have a problem with it. Sometimes these people are Very Important and Serious Lifestyle Players Perverts – often with names like Lord Sir Master Domly McDomlyson. More often the people having this rant are dedicated political activists who want kink to be accepted and taken seriously by the wider world. “Play”, they argue, makes it sound like we’re play-acting, messing around, experimenting. It’s as offensive as telling a gay or bisexual person that their sexuality is more about “playing around” than an intrinsic part of their identity.
I can see the reasoning behind this point of view. But it’s never really influenced me, because I personally embrace and love the term “play”, with all its ambiguity. Adults in our society make far too little time for play. The grownups I know who regularly play games for fun – board games, roleplaying games, wide games – tend to be much better company (and far happier) than those who consider themselves too old for that sort of thing. What’s wrong with playing, anyway? My boyfriends and I are enormously silly in private. If the intimacy of a spanking scene is to be compared to the intimacy of a tickling war or pillow fight, is that such a bad thing?
When Tom and I had a more formal D/s framework, he would sometimes differentiate between scenes that were “play” – undertaken for pleasure, his or mine (usually his) – and scenes that were “work”. The latter included discipline, which wasn’t meant to be fun for either of us, and which had to happen even if neither of us felt like it (consistency and predictability are very important for me when it comes to real discipline – if a punishment is deserved, I react very badly if it doesn’t happen when promised). Scenes designed to train me in scene manners, etiquette, positions – what you might call slave training, although I’ve never been what I would call a slave – were also sometimes considered work. (On the other hand, we could possibly have been described as Serious Lifestyle Perverts in those days, with all the impassioned enthusiasm of people embarking on something new. We’ve both mellowed a touch since then.)
The distinction is meaningless these days; we don’t have the same formal framework, and most of what I do with D. and Tom pretty much falls into the above category of “play”.
Recently, though I thought of a third way of interpreting the word “play” – one which even the activists and Serious Perverts might well be happy with. A scene is not just a fun interaction between partners: it’s a performance. Roleplaying and acting are not so very different. A play is a narrative physically enacted, a dialogue, a scenario. Things that are played, as well as games and sports, include parts, plays, scenes, musical instruments, concertos, symphonies. Playing can be theatrical, immersive, expressive – as well as fun. There’s nothing uncertain or experimental about that.
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Um, this post just cropped up in our blog feed like a new post, but from 5 weeks ago… I don't know if it really is from September 16th and it's just our feed being squiffy or if the date is wrong, but I figured you might want to know just in case!
Likewise, I just saw it in my Google reader. I do believe we're having a bit of a time warp here, if I do say so myself.
But as for the theme of this post, I couldn't agree more. "Play" is an excellent descriptor for TTW!
That should be TTWD — I guess that final D fell off into the bit bucket!
Pandora
i did upload video in spankingtube.com
but i don't know why it's take so much time to be active
any way
you can sign in in Dailymotion.com
by this account
user name: xagee
password: CC33CC33
don't forget to turn off family filter at the top of page on the right side.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xatzyg_for-pandora_creation
note:password use caps lock
capital C
I wonder what the Lord Sir Master McDomly's of the world would rather call it? "Executing" a scene? (Who wouldn't feel more serious as a BDSM executive instead of a BDSM player…)
I love that we play and do "scenes." Like you said, it captures the drama and theatrics as well as the whimsy of this thing we love.
I was debating this earlier this afternoon, writing something about spanking that might end up with some vanilla readers – and decided that 'play' was just the word I wanted.
Aside from the acting connotations of roleplay, I loved the idea it conveys of spanking scenes being natural, enjoyable, joyful, uplifting, relaxing, fun, an activity to be cherished – and I thought the vanillas needed to know that's what good spanking scenes are like.
My interpretation is this:
Every form of recreational sex requires some kind of suspension of disbelief. If you are using a condom then you're fooling your body into thinking you're trying to make a baby when you're not.
If, like many, you are attracted to people who appear to need you because they're in pain, you are probably suspending disbelief that you caused them to be in pain in the first place.
All sex is play unless you're actively trying to reproduce.
The Greeks, as you'll be aware, differentiated between ??????, which was the play of children and ????, which adults indulged in – and encompassed drama and sports. And, of course, gave us our word "agony", which might be appropriate in you case
A??? was a serious business.
Pandora
i made another video
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xavvir_pandora-world_creation
"Lord Sir Master Domly McDomlyson"
Now THAT is funny
I totally embrace the word 'Play'. 95% of all I do in the spanking and related world is play. I used to say that it is an escape from realism, when in truth, it is realism to me because that is how I want it!!
Richard Windsor.
P.S. Thank you for linking into the Universe, I am going to guess that by next week sometime the hits from it will shoot up dramatically.
The word play is good. There is no problem with calling implements, toys either.
Prefectdt
I never saw any reason to concern myself about what the leather-trousered po-faced serious BDSMers, with their spurious self-awarded titles (MASTER? – what? Master mariner? Master builder? Master of foxhounds? Master of Kings College Oxford?) think.
I just thought it was supposed to be FUN!