friendship, and play
gotta love Kate Maberly as Mary Lennox
I’ve been giving some thought to the subject of blog comments. We all like getting them. They make us feel heard and appreciated. Conversely, it’s easy to feel, when a post receives few or no comments, that people don’t love you.
I try not to go down this path, and I try not to beg for comments. It rubs against my wasp upbringing. Nevertheless, I can see that my posts don’t get as many comments as many of the blogs I read. What is it about my writing that discourages comments, I wonder? Is it my wasp reserve? Is it that apparent self-sufficiency that made people in college like and respect me, but never fancy me? Or perhaps I don’t give readers a place to enter? Perhaps I overwhelm them with too much reading.
Blogging isn’t a popularity contest for me, even if it sometimes feels like one. My goal is not to build a readership so I can sell books or feed a pay-site, both legitimate motivations, if not mine. Nevertheless, I can feel despondent when there aren’t many comments. This is inappropriate—or, since I despise that PC word, misplaced—because people who comment on my blog are not there to provide me with mass love. Even online friends, while they might express great support and affection, cannot genuinely love me, or vice versa.
But do I really believe this last statement? As a writer and reader, I know sometimes deep connection and in fact love can occur through the written word. For instance, I have first known and loved many of my students through their writing. Reading someone’s writing can be far more intimate than spending an evening with them down the pub or at dinner. And I would say I feel love (philia) towards blogging and twittering friends whom I have never met in the flesh. How does this compare to the love of in-person friendship tested over time? I am not yet in a position to say.
And the blogs I read that get several comments per post–these writers know many of their commentators well and have played with them (or more) in a most intimate, real-life fashion. So they are “real-life” friends, certainly more tightly bound to each other than I am to them. Thus, perhaps my aloneness in life is partly reflected in the comment traffic on this blog.
www.kate-maberly.com
This morning I was trying to get up at quarter to five, but my mind was absorbed by thoughts of casey. Jessica’s post last week about getting teary in scene stimulated my imagination about how I anticipate casey might feel playing again. Sometimes I imagine her going to a Lowewood day, or some other group scene of a not-too-adult nature, perhaps with England people. But, I don’t imagine her having fun as they do. I see her pretending to have fun but actually feeling terrifically alone and small and orphaned and abnormal; wanting RP and feeling that she must have been very wicked for him to go away; hearing a voice in her head telling her she can’t ever be like these people, telling her they will never understand or love her like he could, that she is just a bore to them–”You OK, Casey?” “Oh, yes!” smile-smile–And if she ever got seriously told off or pink-slipped (or whatever it is they call it when you get sent for to be whacked), she’d be sitting there thinking: See, you are bad, and no one can love you, and these people will never invite you back, and RP won’t be there to love you later, and neither will Marky, and if you hadn’t been so selfish and bad they’d still be here. And the tears would be streaming down her face, like they are now, and these people who were just wanting to have a fun day together wouldn’t know what to think, and would find me way too much work and un-fun, and no one would take me aside and sit me on their knee like they did Jessica, and let casey sob her heart out on their shoulder without them feeling used, and then, when she’d recovered, get her over the hump by telling her that she wasn’t bad at all, but she had been slightly naughty and really ought to take the penalty for that, and then give her a firm but sensitive punishment otk, and then look after her with a kind of housemaster’s-daughter benevolence and firmness all the rest of the day, encouraging her gamely in any cheekiness that might incur penalty because they recognize it as a sign of health, not something that needs true scolding.
www.kate-maberly.com
Except then these people would have to not go away, because if they did (for instance by living in another country, or by being busy and/or married), it would just make her feel more alone and orphaned and wicked.
And so this is why I have not let casey play RL even though I go to parties and meet people who would put me over their knee if I wanted. Because in the realest sense, tgi isn’t play for casey, or for me. At least not in the way most practitioners mean it.
October 25th, 2009 at 7:06 am
Hi Casey
I am one of the people that reads your blog a lot but rarely comments. Truth is I find it much easier to comment on the blogs of people I’ve met, therefore blogs like yours, Bonnie’s, Hermione’s, Zille’s, Serenity’s and Mija’s etc get much fewer comments from me than the UK and Irish bloggers whom I’ve met.
I don’t know why this is, whether it’s because I feel it’s an important way to keep in touch between our RL meetings or whether I simply have more confidence that they want to hear from me or knowing them means I have something valid to say.
But honestly your blog is so powerfully written that I often feel I have nothing to add. You bring up lots of thought provoking issues that sometimes it’s easier not to think about or try to formulate a reply to.
I hope that you continue to write as you do even if we are not as diligent in commenting as we should. And I dearly hope I get to meet you some day.
Hugs,
Emma Jane
October 25th, 2009 at 8:58 am
I rarely comment on blog postings. The two main reasons are that some, unlike yours, require some sort of registration or membership and I don’t join much and the other is that I rarely read blog postings because I have very limited online times and there are simply too many blogs out there. But, I read your Twitter posting and came to read this.
I found your comments about love with interest. As you may know, I met Bonnie on ASS/SSS and we feel in love before we ever met in person. If people communicate well, and honestly, via the written word, I think it is quite possible. At least, 15 years later, it sure seems that way.
October 25th, 2009 at 9:04 am
Dear Casey, I do feel I am getting to know you through your blog and tweets and now in real life, and the only thing I can say is I DO love to post comments on the blogs of people I like and love and whatever falls in between (philia). But I don’t comment to even my husband’s blog every day — this is partly due to my scattered nature and partly due to simply being overwhelmed and party due to feeling like I have nothing of substance to add. I think you’re a fabulous writer and I sometimes do not know what to say. I feel … guilty about my comparative lack of productivity. (and yet, this comment alone is long enough to be its own blog by now, so obviously I have no excuse in that department. On the other hand it IS early Sunday morning and I’ve got a chunk of free time).
About the other part of your blog where you talked about public play and the idea of holding back because you REALLY seek someone who’s going to stick around. Sigh. I identify. May I suggest finding someone you think will stick around at least for the near future — even if this is not the exclusive relationship you seek, it could give you at least some relief and may be exactly what the doctor ordered.
I care about you and I wish you all the best. I’m sorry you’re feeling sad. We did not get enough time to talk at SSNY. Let’s try that dinner idea again real soon.
xxoo
Sandy
October 25th, 2009 at 9:16 am
Echoing my wife’s comments just above, I need to do better about commenting on the blogs I read (yours included). There are times when I feel that I either have nothing to add to the original blog other than “good job” or feel my comments might be patronizing. I do not want to be patronizing especially when people are feeling real emotions and writing about them.
When it comes to the scene and play partners, I think everyone has their own way and pace of inching forward towards a comfort zone. Everyone’s comfort zone is different and what works for me doesn’t necessarily work for Sandy or you or anyone else. It’s all a balancing act between what you want, what you need and what is available. Somewhere in there is the right spot.
Oh, dear — I really hope that wasn’t patronizing. Sorry if it was.
October 25th, 2009 at 9:43 am
I have a few maxims about writing for comments versus writing for the heart that have come to me over time. I think they almost all are exemplified in your blog. I started to set them down here… but once again the comment was turning out to be longer than the original writing.
I think it will become an entry on my blog. Look for it in a few hours – the house is quiet this morning.
s
October 25th, 2009 at 10:29 am
There are a number of different kinds of spanking blogs I enjoy. Of course, no definition of the types could work for all blogs, and many defy classification. But for the sake of discussion, let me divide them into three general types: light-hearted ones that invite us to laugh as we talk about spanking; those that generate discussion about the spanking scene in general, especially the party scene; and those that describe personal experience with literary flair.
I like all three types of blogs (and many more besides those), but I find it easier to comment on the first two types. On more personal blogs, like yours, it’s harder to know what to say. There are times in our lives when we just want people to listen, not to offer unwanted advice. Much of your blog reads like that to me. In person, just being present is all the listener really has to do to communicate in return. Unfortunately, that’s one mode of communication the internet can’t facilitate effectively.
There’s one more factor that I hope I can explain. Your blog, like Serenity’s and Pandora’s, is often so hauntingly beautifully written that I spend days thinking on an off about something you’ve said. Your literary style takes the specific into the universal in a gentle sort of way that I don’t always notice right away. That kind of writing is a gift, but it doesn’t lend itself to the pithy, timely comment!
Casual spanking play is really an entirely different topic. I suspect I wouldn’t be as comfortable with it as I am had I not made a virtue of necessity, but if I go on any longer about that, I’ll have to start a blog myself.
October 25th, 2009 at 11:40 am
[...] life), there has recently been some angst about their blogs. The most recent is Casey Morgan, who wrote this morning: Nevertheless, I can see that my posts don’t get as many comments as many of the blogs I read. [...]
October 25th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
[...] post: friendship, and play | supplicium post mortem This entry is filed under Friendship, love. You can follow any responses to this entry through [...]
October 25th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Well, this post certainly seems to have outed your lurkers. But seriously, I’m all the way with EmmaJane on this one. I do read your blogs regularly. They are such powerful and well crafted pieces that the kind of smart alec, showing off, good humored heckling from the front stalls, comments which are my wont, would be an affront to your writing. Your pieces are so insightful, both to experiences I can understand and others which are totally new to me, leave me deep in thought and lost for words.
I think about you, I sometimes pray for you, I look forward to the possibility that, someday maybe, your path will cross with that of me and Bandree.
Please don’t measure the worth of your writing by your comments score.
October 25th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
I have commented on your blog previously, but as a blogger myself, I’m terrible about commenting on others blogs in general. Part of it is due to being busy and reading on the fly, but mostly it’s due to never knowing what to add.
To be fair, I only recently started reading your blog, so I have time to start commenting more. This a start perhaps!!
October 25th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
I agree with most everything everyone here has written (and also with sparkle’s thoughtful post on her blog). The other issue is time — your blog is still quite new and probably still building regular readership. When I look back over my first couple years of blog posts (my blog was 5 last week), comments are few and far between.
Even now, StatCounter shows I get maybe one comment for every 100 – 200 visitors to the blog. I guess my point is that if you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll get more comments. Plus this is easy advice which requires little effort on your part.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:04 am
I just discovered your blog recently, andam in the process of reading through the archives. I only recently started reading spanking blogs in the last several months, and haven’t built up my “commmenting moxy” yet, as I tend to be a bit shy.
However, I would have commented on this one, if only to ask aout the source of your pictures. Is there a new version of “A Secret Garden” out there? This was one of my all time favorite books, and is still on the “reread” list.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Oh, sweet Casey. I love your blog–it is one of my top 5 favourite things to read on the internet, kink or vanilla. I don’t comment half often enough for a lot of reasons. One is something that several people also mentioned: sometimes what you write it so full and real that I have nothing to add to it. I sometimes post a small “wow” or “thanks” type post, but even that seems cheap and silly compared to the weight of your words. As Indy said, I also sometimes take your post away with me to think about and ponder on my own, to explore and relate to it, and by the time I’ve done that, any time for discussion has passed.
And other times I am just busy and self-absorbed.
As for what you just posted on playing, it breaks my heart but I think I understand. That’s another thing about your writing that does me in (in a beautiful way). The way you write makes me feel as if I know things that I couldn’t possibly know. You bring us so intimately into your thought-processes and heart-processes that sometimes I can feel what you are speaking of so intensely, and I want to respond, and then I realize that it would be patronizing at least to act as if I really understood.
October 27th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Casey,
As I often feel that we “co-write” on a number of your theme efforts I often comment. Sometimes I view them as “comfort comments” – to at least let you know I read your stuff even if (as many have mentioned above) it is often so powerfully written that I couldn’t possibly add anything to it. On a few (rare) occasions you’ve hit a button I didn’t want to deal with – but that is the exception. I agree with the statement that many more people read your blog than comment – I’ve meant to install a counter to either confirm or deny my feeling than more people read than comment on mine – that might help you as well.
As far as real-life stuff, and particularly TTWD, I’ve had the feeling that you were in no way ready to explore. I’ve always felt that your love for your husband was so strong and intense that you weren’t over the loss. Back in the dark ages when I was again single I had a rule of thumb (no, not that kind) that women weren’t ready for a relationship for 4 years after a divorce – men closer to a year and a half. This was the collective wisdom of the men and women I hung with, applied to vanilla relationships, and to divorce rather than loss. Give yourself time to heal – and were I you I would look for casual playing rather than the intensity of a full on BDSM relationship until you have life sorted out.
Casey, I wish I were closer to you – there are times when what I read though your work makes me want to just hug you and tell you it will be OK. Given time, you well may find someone you can share the rest of your life with – I wouldn’t give up just yet…
I truly enjoy writing with you as a partner. I consider it an honor.
Tom
October 29th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
My dear, dear Casey,
I thought of you today as I saw the Ferris wheel we went on together sparkling in the distance, and so I came and caught up with what I’d missed on my vacation. I don’t comment here anything like as much as I should… and a lot of it is probably for similar reasons that other people have mentioned: what you write is so beautifully crafted, and often so raw and emotional, that I feel, in a way, that I don’t have any right to comment. Does that sound silly? I hope not, and I hope you don’t find it offensive or offputting. It’s just that I admire what you write so much that I feel nothing I can write in response would add anything. I think this post is a case in point. I just want to take hold of Casey and hug her tight, and make it all better, because your writing strikes such a deep chord.
See, now I’ve rambled on far too much, but I suppose I just want to say that even if I don’t comment, I read, and I am touched, or intrigued, or moved. And more importantly, even if I’m not commenting, or sometimes even reading for whatever reason, you are still in my thoughts.
E
x