This'll hurt you more than it hurts me.

Meta
Title:	"This'll hurt you more than it hurts me." (On essay itself), "This will hurt you a lot more than it hurts me." (on index page)
Creator:	The Divine Adoratrice
Date(s):	March 28, 1999, updated April 4, 1999
Medium:	online
Fandom:	The Sentinel
Topic:
External Links:	This'll hurt you more than it hurts me., Archived version
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This'll hurt you more than it hurts me. is a 1999 meta essay by The Divine Adoratrice.

Set down and get comfy, folks. You're about to witness the mental contortions of someone who's just found out that she's not quite as open-minded as she always considered herself. I've always considered myself to be quite liberal. I've always been proud of it. At times, I've been downright smug about it (to steal from Monty Python). Live and let live, that's my motto -- right after different strokes and several other platitudes. And then I read a story about spanking.

Some Topics Discussed

• domestic discipline and The Sentinel
• stories at Klair's Korral

Excerpts: From the Original Essay

The author in question is Klair, and her stories can be found somewhere I'm forbidden to mention . (In the original of this page, I included the URL where the stories can be found because I thought it was fair to give readers a chance to decide for themselves. However, after an email from Bonita Crape-Williams demanding that I remove the link to her website, I've done so. Just thought I should explain why the change was made.) For the most part, Klair's stories are Sentinel AUs set in the Old West. What sets them apart is the fact that Blair frequently gets spanked.

Now, these aren't erotic spankings. That's not my favorite genre either, but they don't really bother me. I figure, as long as everyone involved is having fun, who am I to be a wet blanket? No, in Klair's stories, Blair gets spanked when he misbehaves. He gets spanked for mouthing off to Jim. He gets spanked when he disobeys orders (and even after reading most of the stories, I've never found a convincing explanation for why Jim thinks he has the right to order Blair around, other than being bigger and older). He gets spanked when the wind's north by northwest, and when the moon is in the seventh house. And he never minds, other than some pro forma tears and occasional bottom-rubbing.

Where do I start?

I have serious problems with the notion that if you love someone enough, you're entitled to cold-bloodedly hit them. Yeah, there are a lot of couples where one person says, "It's for your own good, and you're making me do this," and the other says, "I shouldn't have provoked you." However, in my experience, these relationships inevitably end up in one of four places: a therapist's office, a shelter for battering victims, a hospital or a morgue. I don't think any of these is a romantic setting.

Besides, Blair, as we know him from canon and fanon, is an ornery little bugger. He pushes Jim around, physically and verbally, in "Warriors." He mouths off to Lash and Kincaid and Brackett -- and to Simon, who can be as intimidating as all of them put together. He doesn't take any shit from anybody (with the possible exception of his mother), so there's no way I can believe a story where he gratefully lets himself be beaten and humiliated. Hell, he wouldn't put up with it if Jim withheld his dessert.

I wonder, what would the reaction be if an XF writer did a story where Dana Scully got turned over someone's knee and, rather than putting him in a world of hurt, she stood up with a teary smile because now she knew that she was loved? On second thought, I don't have any doubt what the reaction would be; probably just like the reaction that Klair's stories get. Offensiveness transcends fandoms. There are few absolutes in life, but in my opinion, this is one: intelligent, capable, strong people do not let themselves be treated like a bad puppy who's piddled on the floor and needs a swat on the tushie.

Are there real-world couples that follow this dynamic? Unfortunately, there are. There are also people who drink too much and get violent, people who cut themselves to relieve tension, and people who are just miserable human beings. I wouldn't feel comfortable with a story that presented any of these things as a normal, healthy way to lead your life, and I don't feel comfortable with stories that infantilize an otherwise intelligent and self-reliant character.

Excerpts from the Addendum

You wrote that sexually-oriented spanking stories didn't bother you. Why?

They're not exactly something I seek out, but they don't automatically offend me, either. I mean, we all have that lizard brain deep inside that connects straight to the gonads, and who am I to question what gets someone else going?

Keep in mind that I'm anything but an authority on the scene, but dominant/submissive relationships tend to be reciprocal: both parties enter into it with full knowledge of what they're getting into. And, in fact, in a lot of respects the bottom is in control of the relationship. He or she says when to start and when to stop. And, well, the bottom is the center of attention.

Compare this to corporal punishment stories. And by definition, "corporal punishment" is something done to children. Everyone else -- even prisoners -- has the fundamental right not to be physically punished. You push someone in a bar fight? You might very well face assault charges. Only children have no right to refuse to put up with being struck.

If you posit a relationship between two adults where one assumes the right to punish the other -- outside of a ritualized sexual situation -- the adulthood of the second is, in effect, removed. Rather than temporarily yielding his autonomy to another person for the mutual pleasure of both, he essentially agrees that he doesn't have any right to make his own decisions, for good or bad. And that sends a message that I'm very uncomfortable with. I've seen too many relationships where one person thinks he's justified in using physical force to get his own way, and the other goes along because "I made him angry -- and it doesn't hurt that much, really." You wanna call me PC for not finding that romantic, fine.

Another contrast to D/S is that it's not clear that both parties are, in fact, getting something out of the relationship. Let's stick with Klair's stories. Even if you accept that Blair could be happy with someone who hits him... what does Jim get out of the relationship? He's got himself a boy-man who's whiny, petulant and undisciplined; someone who repeatedly puts himself in danger and (horror of horrors) questions Jim's authority. What's to love about Klair's Blair? Most of the stories I read make a point of saying that there's absolutely no sexual component to the spankings themselves. So if someone's not getting off on it, what's the basis for a relationship where Blair is so annoying and so incapable of learning that Jim feels obligated to punish him frequently?

2) Did you read enough to draw a fair conclusion?

I think so. I didn't read every single story, but I read four or five all the way through and skimmed a few others. I also checked some other writers who do the same type of story, just to see if it was something about one particular author that was rubbing me the wrong way. The result... well, if you've seen Men in Black, you probably remember the scene where Tommy Lee Jones says, "That's one of a hundred memories that I don't want."

3) Society has a right to punish criminals, so why doesn't Jim have a right to punish Blair?

I'm not at all sure the two can be compared. Yes, if someone breaks the law, he can expect to be punished by the legal system. But I don't know if you can equate a system of laws, developed over time and administrated by (ideally) impartial parties with a relationship in which one person is expected to obey his lover without question. The entire theory behind the rule of law is that all people are supposed to be equal before it. (Granted, there are a lot of violations -- but that doesn't invalidate the principle itself.) The corporal relationship, on the other hand, is a one-way street: Jim gives orders, and Blair either obeys or is punished. If there were stories in which Blair also had the right to force his will on Jim, and to punish him when he failed to do so, then I might give this argument a little more credence. But I haven't seen any corporal punishment stories in which both partners had the right to punish.

Fan Comments

Katrina,

I read your rant 'This'll Hurt You More Than It Hurts Me' and you made some very interesting comments. I'd like to respond to some of them if I may.

Where do I start?

1) "I have serious problems with the notion that if you love someone enough, you're entitled to cold-bloodedly hit them..."

Webster's Dictionary defines 'hit' as a forceful blow, 'spank' as a strike on the buttocks with the open hand. I wouldn't say these definitions are necessarily interchangable. There is a difference between slugging someone in anger and taking part in a ritualized punishment scenario. I'm sorry that you're unable to see the difference.

2)"No way I can believe a story where he gratefully lets himself be beaten and humiliated."

So are we going to see a tirade against Saraid's Dirty Little Secrets next? Or is continually submitting to *rape* and humiliation somehow ok?

3)"What would be the reaction if any XF writer did a story where Dana Scully got turned over someone's knee..."

It's been done, but since I don't read f/f sex, I can't give you the exact location. A friend suggested soc.sexuality.spanking (where she says it was very well-received) but I haven't had a chance to check it out.

4)"Offensiveness transcends fandoms."

If you are referring to spanking, yes it does. I would recommend 'The Taming of Tom Paris' by Britta if you like C/Ppairings. If you are referring to the rape and/or continual victimization of supposed 'bottoms', yes unfortunately that transcends fandoms too. But it doesn't make it right.

5)"I simply can't convince myself that there's anything romantic about a competent adult allowing himself to be treated like a naughty 3 year old."

Did Klair ask you too? Did she hold you down and force you to read her stories? Is your delete key missing?

6)"I don't feel comfortable with stories that infantilize an otherwise intelligent and self-reliant character."

Does this also apply to the mental infantilization, or are you only obsessed with the physical? Personally I find the repeated mental infantilization of Blair much more offensive. And yet story after story has him victimized, totally unable to function without Jim holding his hand, and I never hear a word of complaint about them. (Adoratrice popping in here... I was going to present these without editorial comment, but I can't help but wonder: where has this person been hanging out, that they've never heard complaints about Le Femme Blairita?) (No, "La Femme Blairita" isn't mine. I wish it were, but it belongs to someone even funnier and snarkier than I.)

Personally I find Saraid a much more offensive author than Klair. The idea that Jim and Blair could not possibly have a relationship unless they're forced into it by a primal imperative is homophobic and totally repugnant to me. The idea that Blair would repeatedly submit to rape by Jim without reporting it, moving out, or taking any other action is more offensive to me than I can possibly convey to you. Saraid said herself that in Panther Tales she was trying to see just how much she could degrade Blair without totally destroying the character. And I don't hear any outrage about that, but the cries of moral indignation about domestic discipline are deafening.

I've tried not to make personal judgements, but I find that a lot of slash writers are hypocrites, plain and simple. They write in an area that is considered deviant by many people and they expect nothing less than tolerance and understanding. But when they're asked to extend that tolerance to someone *they* disapprove of, the outrage is immediate and total.

I think Jerry Falwell and the Christian Coalition have a lot of competition in the bigotry contest. And I think it's sad that a lot of it comes from so-called 'enlightened' authors.

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