Return of the …

I have been “out” of the spanking community for the better part of five years as I went through pregnancy and being completely enveloped in the raising of a toddler into a child. Prior to my pregnancy, I thought about spanking constantly. I wanted it all the time. Pregnancy hormone shifts hit me intensely and killed my libido in every way. I had spent 10 years very active in the scene, attending local parties, national parties, munches, organizing events, even making spanking videos at one point.

After my daughter was born, I was genuinely scared it would never come back. We dabbled slowly and gently, occasionally, (my eternally patient husband, taking my lead) but I still didn’t think of it in the same way as I had before and I didn’t feel like myself. Although I don’t think of spanking as as critical as food for me, it’s as much a part of me as being short or red headed or brown eyed. It makes me feel like me in the same way other traits do. I didn’t recognize myself without it but thought I’d have to get used to this version of me. Becoming a new parent can be an identity crisis in and of itself, but thinking I was losing my kink, nearly sent me over the edge. That said, I didn’t try very hard to reach out to scene friends – in fact, I pulled back. I lost touch. I felt I no longer knew those friends in the same way because I didn’t know myself.

And I missed it. I missed it for a long time and in significant ways. Then, in September 2023, it all came back in a flood, but not how I expected it to. I had gotten back in touch with groups of spanking friends, that helped. What really hit me, was a Target collab – I walked in to my local Target and was met with a display full of plaid, blazers, and pleated skirts. It wasn’t real uniform, but rather, adjacent. A fashion trend. I’ve never been into schoolgirl uniforms – I dabbled as part of a sort of expectation for a young person entering the scene, but I never felt drawn to it in the way many are in the spanking community, in the context of role-play (believe me, this is more complicated than one blog post!). But this was different. I immediately bought the multi-plaid pleated skirt that was part of the collection. It was still just uniform adjacent and much more fashion than anything else but it was calling to me and I have a friend for whom uniform is a pretty significant part of their kink. I wanted to talk about it and I needed…a provocation? An in? I mean, I didn’t actually – he would have happily talked to me about uniform anytime, but it felt safer somehow. Of course, it worked.

Now, I should add some context – I had had a particularly rough week and was feeling a bit knocked back and emotional. I had a perfectly fine but not glowing semi-annual review with some constructive feedback from my boss, that was difficult for me to wrap my head around. I was in a particularly good place to be thinking about spanking (and discipline, which I wasn’t able to identify in the moment), because I was feeling particularly vulnerable. It was a matter of being in the right headspace, at the right time.

If you’d told me 10 or even 5 years ago that I’d be drawn to uniform in the way I am now, I would have thought you were tricking me, but it’s not just the uniform (though it feels very powerful in and of itself, a topic I’ll explore in another post), it’s discipline. The uniform itself is discipline and a very visible form of physical discipline, so it’s a representation of that. I can feel disciplined without it, but I am finding it makes it feel more meaningful.

Like many young or new spankos, I thought often (even primarily) about disciplinary or punishment spankings. I wanted them to be real. My earliest fantasies focused around a few things: parental disciplinary spankings, rather surreal feeling ritualized discipline, and not uniform necessarily but a punishment outfit of sorts? That’s another topic I’ll visit in its own post. I don’t know where these ideas came from, I just know they were there as early as I could remember – from age 4-5 on.

Also like many young or new spankos, I discovered that disciplinary or punishment dynamics are complicated and nothing like the stories! After a lot of false starts and failed attempts, I did have a successful disciplinary relationship with a dear friend and play partner, while I was a student. It was me driven, though. I wasn’t beholden to arbitrary rules. It was about my goals. I had to be the push, he couldn’t pull me along – it really all had to ultimately come from me. Once it had sort of served its purpose, it evolved into the play friendship we maintained for years. Thus, I pushed discipline to the bottom of my mind (along with occasional thoughts of uniform because, well, I hate uniforms, obviously!) as something I probably wouldn’t have again.

My husband is wonderfully kinky but discipline and punishment (beyond orange socks things – more on that another time!) are not at the core of his kink. He isn’t drawn to them, can intellectually understand it, but doesn’t get it. That’s ok! It’s not always easy, but it’s ok. I hadn’t been willing (for a very long time) to give discipline much thought until the last several months and I’m enjoying exploring a version that is real but not…real-life? There is no assumed real world authority, no real world consequences, but the discipline is strict, formal, visible (uniform! real uniform – not something fashion adjacent!), calm, focused, and deeply comforting. It’s very real in the moment and the feeling lasts, but it’s not about a real-life thing – if I am explaining that properly. Not that I wouldn’t welcome that kind of kink dynamic, but that’s not what this is about right now.

This is not at all how I expected to find my way back to my kink, or myself, but I feel more myself than I have in years and that is also comforting. I’ve returned to local parties and even played at them! I’ve reconnected with old play partners and hope to set up time to play with them in the ways we like. My husband and I are figuring out how discipline might work with him for me and more importantly – how to have fun with spanking again.

I finally feel like me again and I feel like I’m remembering what it’s like to be an autonomous person. A happier and more complete version of myself. And I want to write about it. I want to write about uniforms and what is appealing (and not, and yet is?) about them, how they factor into discipline for me. I want to write about what is fun about spanking for me. I want to have conversations about the kinds of kink topics we (collectively) used to blog about frequently.

And maybe, like 15 years ago, someone might stumble upon this and read it, and find community.

-M