Shifting

I can't seem to get a handle on my feelings about bottoming these days. It's left me feeling unsatisfied except with a few, select tops. And because I don't play with those tops that often, it's really hard to accept the pain when I DO.
I guess it's always hard to accept the pain. But it's not as much of a shock when you do it more often. And it's also easier to accept when someone's in an agreed-upon authoritative role over you, AKA, your dom.
For me there are one or two tops who step into that role when I see them, but who don't accept that role in between, so I find myself feeling ignored and resentful. "I don't have a commitment with this guy; why am I taking so much punishment?" The answer (of course, for those of you who know me) is that I need it, must have it, need that release -- but it still leaves me, in between times, floating and unfulfilled.

What's a spanking party like?

With Florida Moonshine coming up in about two weeks, I've been thinking about writing here about the parties, what happens there and why we spend the money to go. Coincidentally, a dom who's never been to a party wrote me today on FetLife, asking what these events were like. I responded in detail, and I figured I'd recap that here.

The two big parties that Rad and I go to are Shadow Lane and Florida Moonshine. We also attended the debut of the Boardwalk Badness weekend this year in Atlantic City. I've heard that Crimson Moon in Chicago was great and I've also heard good things about the Texas All-State party but we haven't been able to make it to those. Then there was another new one in San Francisco this year, the SF-CP party. I didn't get to that one, either, but it did sound like fun. Ms. Margaret of the Spanking Club of New York (SCONY) has been hosting semi-annual spanking parties for many years in the Poconos.

I'm sure there are others, and if you do know of more, please write and let me know. Those are just the ones I'm familiar with, and this blog is mostly going to explain FMS and SL. I guess you could call them conventions of spankos (or spanking fetishists, as one friend calls it who hates the word "spanko"). Shadow Lane draws between 200 to 300 people.

Florida Moonshine, which is holding its last party this year (sigh), gets I think about 200 people. The hotel tend to be a little more expensive than the Vegas one, but it's a nice hotel right on the beach.

My husband and I go to these parties because we think the people are really great and there are some we only get to see once or twice a year. I tend to have some pretty hot scenes at these parties, too, that I might not be able to experience in NYC.

What officially happens is both events open with a vendor's fair (with an array of finger foods) on Friday night, and both have a banquet where people dress up on Saturday night. SL tends to have some kind of theme for the banquet, like "the 70s" or "Back to School," and a certain percentage of people dress according to the theme. The rest tend to just dress up nicely. Some guys wear tuxes, even -- most just wear suits or slacks and a nice shirt. This is the same at FMS.

After these events conclude for the evening, around 10 p.m., some of the people who've booked suites host parties there. A few of these are by invitation only, but most of them are open to anyone. Naturally, of course, there is private play going on in rooms all over the place, too.

For the rest of the weekend, FMS tends to have more organized events, such as the schoolgirl academy, the Governesses Gala, or the Trivia Contest. FMS also has a hospitality suite that's open for most of the party.

At SL, people are free to do whatever they want. Usually, someone who's attending will organize a smaller, themed party, like what used to be called the Brat's Breakfast but I think morphed into the "Saturday Morning Sisterhood." This is where a lot of the girls get together and have breakfast in their PJs. At some point a "Mystery Spanker" appears and then spankings commence. I'll probably go to a Female tops/male bottoms party at some point at both weekends.

Some people arrive earlier in the week and stay over until Monday. It's relaxing, but the time goes quickly. Will all best intentions, you can't always fit in playing with everyone you want to.

Meeting people is up to each person. I'd suggest newbies go onto FetLife or on the events' message boards or group chats -- if they exist -- and try to learn who's who.

There are mostly spankos at the parties, but some are more into dominance and some spankees are more into submission. Lots of stuff goes on behind closed doors. I love the fact that you can have the privacy to experiment, with the safety of the party around you.

What's also happened to us, over the last few years, is that we're meeting great couples to hang out with. We often arrange to have dinner with two or three other couples and then sometimes we'll do a scene with one other couple. The other husband will spank me and Rad will spank his wife. It's like swinging without the sex, kind of.

I'll update this if I can think of anything else, but that's pretty much it.

My book is now available for sale

I'll be vending at the Florida Moonshine and Shadow Lane parties, so you can save on shipping AND get an autographed copy (and possibly a spanking) if you're going to those parties.

Hope everyone had a good weekend. I was visiting my parents in S. Jersey, I'm very tired, but it should be a good week. Now that my first book is a wrap, I'm continuing to write and prepare for the next one.

Why we brat

I started this thread on FetLife yesterday when talking to some of my friends in the Hollywood Spanking Munch and Party group, and figured it was worth cross-posting here.

It struck me yesterday that my default modus operandi is to be a wise ass. You can call it witty banter, bratting, being a SAM (smart-ass masochist), whatever. I admit that I SOMETIMES do it to rile someone up and give him a reason to spank me, OR to push his buttons so he spanks me harder, but I'll also do it with doms who I KNOW don't need any such prompting, as well as with everyday people in the scene and the vanilla world, people I'm not jockeying for position to play with.

And I am starting to realize that it's a knee-jerk, fear-based approach to people. If I share from the heart, people may reject me, so I better do the class clown bit and amuse them instead. The real me may or may not come out eventually.

At every large spanking party I attend like Shadow Lane or Florida Moonshine, I generally do okay in crowds because I'm comfortable "performing" in this manner. Then there's the moment where I just want to run away, and I NEED to be honest and tell someone what I'm feeling.

I might share how I really feel very very unpopular because I haven't been asked to play all day, or that I don't feel attractive enough, or that I'm feeling jealous of someone my husband's playing with. All those "bad" feelings that you aren't supposed to talk about.

I CAN'T open up and share like that most of the time. I have to trust someone before I do, and no one wants to be serious all the time.

Bratting and joking around is part of the fun of parties, too. I generally put my money where my mouth is. And I'll probably always be a SAM.



After several nicely worded responses to my original post, I added, "Oh, yes, I forget: I'm also an attention whore."

I'll get right on that

It looks like another bleary day out there; I wanted to go for a walk but I couldn't this morning, not in the rain. At lunch time, maybe it will be clearer. I'm at home working today, which is certainly better than being in the office, but there are drawbacks.

For instance, my cat tends to be an attention whore and this makes it difficult to concentrate. I'd like to be able to sit on the couch, put my feet up and read manuscripts in that position. (This is part of what I do -- I read a lot of raw manuscripts). But the kitteh simply cannot refuse my empty lap (funny, I know a lot of subby guys like that), and he will nestle in there with me, making it impossible to review, let alone mark, the pages.

The other negative part of working from home is that the kitchen tends to call me. At work, the building's snack machine is many floors down in the basement, so I don't visit it often. Here, there's always something to nibble on. I made cashew brittle yesterday. As I tweeted last night, it was slightly overdone, it was too thick, and I should have kept the cashew nuts whole instead of chopping them a little. But still, it's pretty tasty and it's just sitting there in that plastic container. Next time I make candy I'll tell Rad to bring it to work. I haven't succumbed to it, though. No nibbles yet today.

I think the best way to handle this situation is to close myself off in the bedroom -- no TV, no computer, no cell phone, no kitty hugs -- and get my reading done there. Work for a few hours. Then take a walk, shower, then back to work.

God, who am I kidding? I'll probably find some spanking porn to distract myself with in the bedroom.

I do need another spanking (OMG it's been four days!!!) but I'll get one soon enough.

"It's SUPPOSED to Hurt!"

That's the name of the book I'll be debuting at Florida Moonshine, if all goes well. It's a compilation of the best of my topping blog, "The Corporal Consultant" (www.mscassandrapark.com), along with a little bit about my switch side.

Here's a grainy sample of what the cover will look like: the actual book was sent to the printer via PDF today and will be available electronically soon.


I'll be signing and selling the real book at the Vendor's Fair on Friday night, June 4, at FMS, so please stop by and say hi. The whole point of signing up to vend was to introduce "Cassandra Park, the Corporal Consultant" to a wider community. I was just going to have a banner, offer OTK spankings, and make some homemade chocolate or fudge to sell.

Then my friend Tasha Lee of BumRap Productions (new blog Tasha Lee's Kinky Corner) went and published "Hot-Crossed Buns." She said she had done it herself, and so I had the "brilliant" idea to do the same. "I've already got all the material," I said. "It's on my blog, and I've got all these stories!"

Ha! Having all the written material was only the first step. I have been sweating bullets trying to finish this thing. I had to lay it out, figure out what should go where, make it look nice, proof it, organize photo shoots with some more male subs (it's harder than you think to get new pictures, and most players in the scene still don't want their faces showing). Then after the changes, I had make it look nice again. I'm amazed after all that that I actually did it.

I'm exhausted. I'm going to bed early after ignoring sleep for the past two weeks. I've barely had time to keep up on anything and I'm going to get back into a regular writing mode tomorrow.

Rad and I DID manage to get to the Manhattan Spanking Association party last night, which was much needed, where I got a couple of spankings including one much-needed one by my husband Rad. I also got to top an adorable male bottom, who was inquiring about ongoing "guidance" with meeting goals. Hm. I am one to guide others about meeting goals, ME who cannot seem to make it out the door on time?

We'll see!