What constitutes bravery in our world? I suppose many people who look at us from the outside might consider that there is an element of bravery in what we do. That, or stupidity! But what do you consider to be brave?
Is taking your first ever spanking brave? Undoubtedly. Bending over to experience something that you've thought about, dreamed about, fantasised about for possibly many, many years is brave. What if it doesn't live up to all those wonderings? Can you trust the person you're playing with? It's a brave thing to do.
Giving your first spanking is similarly brave, not only are there the years worth of fantasies that you might be about to ruin, but you also have the responsibility for someone else's well-being in your hands.
Is letting someone strap you down to a whipping bench for a judicial punishment that will be the hardest thing you've ever experienced, brave? Having read accounts from Emma Jane of her judicial birchings and canings, can there be any doubt that it is?
Taking a spanking or caning without flinching or making a fuss is brave as well, I doubt I'll find any argument there.
But how about this scenario? A caning. Standing up after every other stroke. Clutching your bottom, eventually crying. Doesn't really sound that brave... But how about if I position it a little differently? Standing up, and clutching yes, maybe even begging for it to stop. But it is probably the hardest caning that you've ever had. One that will leave some serious bruising. One that is a punishment, but a punishment that you requested for having done something that you don't want to do again. I think (and to be fair, I'm pretty biased!) that even though the caning isn't taken in a “perfect” manner, it's still a pretty damn brave thing to do.
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I've said many times both in print and in person that bravery has nothing to do with how hard you can stand to play a scene - to take a massive amount of pain isn't brave in itself. What is brave is the grace in submitting yourself to something that you know you will find difficult and at or beyond your own personal limit. That is where your true submissive instincts come in and they are different for every person.
There is no virtue in the pure physical - true bravey comes from when you do the impossible, you submit to the terrible, you want to do it to please your dom and yourself and afterwards you feel, amongst the agony (and that agony will vary between people) that you did something in which you can take pride. Sometimes a word or a look can be as powerful as the harshest blow.
Because many acts of bravey are utterly unthinking (in a time of trauma or danger, such as the 7/7 bombings), to delibrately plan to do something that you know will be very hard also shows bravey and courage.
As an example, one of the bravest things I did (In my opinion) was to submit, willingly, to a vicious verbal assault on my looks and weight, knowing it would upset me enough to try and lose some. The words still haunt me to this day and I often use them as a spur. I could have chosen to have the kind words, but I chose the hard way.
So bravey is a subjective thing. And it's about *you* not what anyone else thinks.
I believe that when a naughty women is given a punishment spanking especially if it is with a cane or birchrod. It must be excepted by her, and fully. Yes, the humiliation of raising her dress waist high. Yes, having her panties taken down to bare her bottom. Yes, the painfull strokes, that rain down upon her naked rear end. Yes, the command of being ordered to stand in the corner, to contemplate her rightfully deserved punishment.
I think it's never wise to confuse style with substance. Some people find it easier to get through a painful thrashing by staying as calm as possible, others prefer to let loose. The thrashing is the same either way, and just as hard to take.
Hope you're sitting more comfortably now. In other words, ready to play again!
I was about to write a post and then I read Jessica's and she'd pretty much said everything that I would have said.
Being brave and being stoic are not the same thing. Being able to physically take more, for me, isn't the brave thing. Taking the steps to decided to play and to trust someone else with your body is brave.
I think living a kink life is brave. There's a lot that can go wrong, and getting outed is a very scary and very real fear. So I s'pose we're all a bit brave really.
I think discipline and punishment that you ask for, and submit to is the bravest thing you can do.
I don't think making comparisons to JCP events is fair. Knowing you've done wrong and atoning for it is much braver.
Knowing that you can't stop, you have to take it, that you deserve it is so much braver. And as anyone in this position knows, there is no pride or glory or adrenalin in a true punishment and that makes it much harder.
So yes, I think you were incredibly brave.
To my mind every action that combines self-responsibility with a care for others can be considered as being brave. Because finding the right balance between the two is a tough job.
In the kinky world that means that it can be brave to take a severe spanking and to show only restrained reactions or it can be brave to take a spanking that's close to one's limits knowing that the reactions will be quite strong or it can be brave to submit to a top. From my point of view it can also be brave not to do a certain scene (or take a certain spanking) and to acknowledge that this scene (or spanking) would be beyond one's limits.
I think you are a person who takes that responsibility for herself and at the same time cares for the people around her, Eliane. And in my opinion that is what bravery is all about! :-)
I think being brave is doing things that are difficult but ultimately worthwhile - not about how stoical you can be. That you requested the punishment is extra specially brave :)
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