Who Am I and What is this About

I am an Irish male, in my mid-50's, in a stable well established marriage to a woman I love very much. Our children, mostly grown, are gradually, as is the way these days, leaving the nest.

As you can tell from my age, myself and my wife are children of the 60's. She would have been a supporter of, what I would call, leading edge intellectual feminism, when a student and we are both the generation of professionals who have, through our careers, been the first wave to unquestionably support the rights of women to full equality in all political, management, work, sport, financial and other arenas. Us men probably found it a little more difficult to be equally embracing of other traditionally female roles but we have tried. In truth, the generation of men before us were a lot more reluctant to cook meals, go shopping, mind babies or show their true emotions than we are.

So how on earth did I wake up this morning to be embraced by my beloved wife and thanked for holding firm and bringing her to Nimhneach for the first time, for either of us, where she was spanked by me in public, followed me on a chain and was even confined to a cage for "time out"!

This is a further landmark in a joint journey of discovery which started a few years ago.

Slap and tickle, coy naughtiness and voyeuristic fantasy talk are the heady stuff of many romances. But for "new age" man there often is a carefully shared lightheartedness. Political correctness, even in the unregulated bedroom, is subtly policed when you are of our generation, because we all, platonically mind you, linked arms to crusade for equality. Believe me, that equality did not run to ever considering that I could place my wife onto an A-frame in view of complete strangers, raise her skirt to reveal a narrow strip of black lace, a cross between a knicker and a suspender belt, and strike her bottom with a leather strap because she had forgotten my instruction to address me as "Sir". As a consequence, I am of the age and mindset that struggles to comprehend the visible reality that the same woman, not one iota compromised in her political, social or religious beliefs, is glowing radiantly the next morning, skipping and jumping, happier than I have seen her all week.

The locals amongst you will, of course, point out that the grey November clouds rolled away this weekend and Dublin returned to more appropriate weather arrangements, but that wasn't the only reason. As I said, this is just one more step for us in a fascinating path of learning how an old fashioned masterful approach to domestic love can provide strength, support, feelings of worth and purpose. We are discovering that "role" is much more potent than "role play".