Holy Schnike, That's Gonna Leave A Mark!

Poor implements, they get a bad rap sometimes. These innocent and often beautiful pieces of wood and leather end up in idle hands and are used to strike fear in the hearts of bottoms everywhere. Don't blame the implement, blame the top!

Okay, maybe some things are worse than others, but I think it really comes down to how it's used and who is wielding it. A leather belt can be used in a soft, sensual way whereas the innocuous wooden spoon can get one hopping.



My paddles from Kitty

They're so pretty, how can you hold a grudge? I think there are so many stories and themes related to particular implements that it affects how we perceive them. The cane is a classic example and honestly, I'm kind of afraid of it. It always sounds so severe. But recently I read a story by Ronnie at Heart and Soul that changed my perception a bit and showed that there are other ways to use it. Scary or not, a caning is something I'm quite curious to experience one day. I know, I know, curiosity killed the cat.




My Domestic Discipline Strap from The London Tanners

I know certain implements like the belt and strap tend to automatically put me in a particular headspace, too. I wrote a bit about that in this recent post on perception of pain. If my mind is in a serious headspace, the spanking may very well feel worse than it really is.

A few weeks ago, J was giving me a maintenance spanking. In addition to what usually goes into that, he strapped me with the implement pictured above after the maintenance was over for a sort of "funishment" session. It wasn't over a really serious reason but I was in trouble for something. I'm not even sure how many swats I got with it, I don't think it was really much more than 10, but it brought me to tears. I can probably count on both hands how many times that has actually happened. I think it was caused by a combination of things including my headspace, how much I dislike that friggin implement, any build-up of stress I'd been experiencing recently, and the hardness of the spanking itself. But the latter was probably the smallest factor. J said he didn't really use it any harder than any other time. It does wrap easily though and I always have little bruises from where the end of it connects on my bottom. Some say that goes away a bit when you get leather worn in, but I don't know that I care to use it enough to become "worn in"!

Back to my point though, a lot of it comes down to who is using it and how it's wielded. For people who haven't had any or very much experience with implements, my recommendation is to go slow. You can always build up to more later but you can't take back something that was way too severe from the get-go. And one bad experience can make someone shy away from a particular implement for good. Warm up to it and if you don't like it at all, there's a lot of variety out there of other things to try. Or you can just forget implements all together and leave them to what they should be used as- wall decorations.