I don’t know how many of you will be familiar with the term ‘Third Culture Kids’ Basically, it refers to people growing up in one or more countries, or cultures other than the one of their birth, their family, or their passport. Military brats are one such group that fits the terminology, young ones involved in a cult are another. I am one of the latter.
Obviously, as I am writing, I have a spanking fetish, and I have always wondered whether this kink arises in TCKs because of a lack of stability growing up – we crave discipline and structure, to the degree that we fetishize it.
By the time I left the cult in question I had lived in Japan, Macau, Libya, Portugal, Mexico, Thailand, Poland, Italy, Argentina, and the United Kingdom. My parents are both Scottish, and I hold a UK passport. The country we were in had little impact on corporal punishment: us younger ones received it everywhere. However, different people and different communes had different methods of disciplining the young.
In Italy, us youngsters were mostly cared for by ’Auntie Kita’ and ‘Uncle Jose’. Auntie Kita favoured hand spanking: over her lap, ten or so spanks. Auntie Kita was nicer than most of the aunties and uncles and her spankings didn’t bruise, they just left a warm bottom.
Uncle Jose used his belt but was still over his knee. It would leave small bruises but still didn’t hurt too badly. Another adult in this home was Uncle Peace. He used a wooden spoon and would pop it all over the bottom over his knee, spanking until he heard what he called a ’broken cry’. I hated being spanked by Uncle Peace but eroticized it very early on, and would break minor rules around him in the hopes of getting one of his dreaded spoon spankings.
In Japan, I spent some time in a camp for teenagers, and their bottom paddlings in front of every one weren’t uncommon. On my first da,y I was in trouble for my rebellious spirit, and one new uncle bent me over a chair while another administered six hard swats on my bottom, using a large wooden paddle with holes in it. It hurt like hell and my bottom was bruised.
Once I left the cult, I went back to the UK to get qualifications and find a new life. I found a husband quite quickly and we had our eldest daughter in 1999. Although I was now an adult, I had little knowledge of how to actually raise my off spring.
One day, my daughter was obstinate and rude – so I turned her over my knee and spanked her bottom soundly.
My daughter received several more similar spankings and told my husband about them. He was shocked – certainly, he believed in a single smack for naughtiness, but not an extended spanking. This is one of the ways being a TCK has impacted me – in my world, long, over-the-knee spankings to the point of a very warm, sore bottom were normal. In my husband’s world, a single smack was justified but anything more was cruel.
Working out what is normal in what country is hard as growing up I only spent about eight months living in the UK. The culture I grew up in was bad, but it was all I knew. I have recently asked my parents how they would have raised me and my siblings had we not been in the cult. We had a good conversation, and I inquired about spanking. My mother said: “Even before I was in, I believed in a good, hard-smacked bottom for a naughtiness.”
So, it seems I would have been soundly spanked even if I had just grown up in the UK. But would I have eroticized it? Would bending over a knee and taking my discipline feel so necessary and important in my life if I’d had a normal upbringing? I will never know.
