A couple of weeks ago, I did a scene with one of my partners where she cried. A lot. Not, like, loud and ostentatious crying, but she cried softly for a fair bit while we did our scene.

I always say I like when people cry while being spanked. But the actual tears happening? Well, I’ll be honest: I got worried. I was worried that I was going too hard, that things were too intense, that she wasn’t enjoying herself (or at least getting what she needed out of it). I checked in a bunch of times, and each time she gave me a thumbs-up or told me she was okay — until she finally called yellow due to overstimulation.

Why did I have such a problem with these specific tears? I think it’s because, the more I care about someone, the less I want to hurt them. Not physically, but mentally/emotionally. Of course I want to keep spanking my partners until they’ve taken all they can (and more besides), but I don’t want them to actually be unhappy. Tears generally — but not always — indicate some sort of unhappiness. That causes concern for me — specifically, concern that I have done something wrong, something I might not be able to fix or come back from. That could then lead to the end of the relationship, which, despite how healthy my relationships are at this point, is always a worry in the back of my mind. (That’s a me problem, not a them problem.) Compounding it for this particular scene was the fact that we had a couple of intense discussions earlier in the day where we went over a legitimate misstep of mine — not an argument, not a shouting match, just discussions where we we each expressed what we were feeling, why the thing that happened happened, and what can be done to keep it from happening in the future.

So when my partner couldn’t stop crying during the scene, I was concerned. Had I screwed up so badly that we couldn’t come back from it?

Of course not. We’re still together, still happy, still doing just fine, still going to do intense scenes that may or may not lead to more tears.

When I spank someone, I like them to cry (unless they specifically don’t want that). But sometimes what I like and what actually happens don’t always line up right in my head.

(Image from Triple A Spanking.)