Domestic Discipline Black Wednesday: DD and the Media after June 19th

UPDATED Info & Links! Domestic Discipline as a lifestyle has come under a smear campaign filled with misinformation and fabrication. June 19th is DD Black Wednesday and the worst day in Domestic Discipline history. It is on that day that all the negativity in the media began and continues. This can easily be seen by everyone around for more then a couple years who are aware of the celebrations and difficulties this community has been through over many years. It can be proven through a retrospective of the past and what has happened since June 19th.

People in the Domestic Discipline community know that I read everything I can find on the subject of Domestic Discipline including articles, discussion groups, blogs, sites etc... and I have for years. I investigate and research all areas of the DD lifestyle dynamic. I believe it's because of that, that ADDS has been receiving a very heavy high volume of emails from people concerned for our community. I understand this and appreciate the emails and I agree with all of you. Something happened on June 19th that has set our community back at least 15+ years. There is no denying that a brand new "cub" reporter wrote a post for a tabloid online site, a relatively inexperienced interviewee fell prey to the reporter and has done almost nothing to turn that around. They came out and said that the post was 99% fabricated. So, why didn't they call the reporter and the tabloid and demand a retraction or to have the post taken down the same day it went up? They didn't do anything, and that raised many questions as to why they wouldn't. I wanted to, and tried to come out in support of the interviewee but they have completely dropped the ball and are acting as if the article was nothing more then a way to advertise for their business of selling DD, from one couples perspective, to newcomers. Sadly the newcomers don't know yet that everything being sold is already found free online or by simply emailing experienced people or coming into a place like The Domestic Discipline Community Chat Room.  
This article is not meant to be about the interviewee, but I wanted to update readers as to what has been happening since the articles Spanking for Jesus is a hoax: The Reality of Domestic Discipline and Defending Domestic Discipline: I Love my DD choice. 
Some know that the interviewee and the readership of ADDS have some very ingrained differences, but I made a concerted effort several months ago to bury the hatchet and agree to disagree on selling DD vs free altruistic information and how to begin a DD relationship dynamic from mutual Consent, Communication, Honesty and focusing on the relationship first vs spanking weekends, spanking positions, implements, 20 rules for a HoH to impose on a TiH etc etc etc... I forgave them for their part in a misunderstanding, and apologized for listening to a couple gossips instead of contacting them earlier. That information is here> Domestic Discipline Community Forum: Open Discussion Days!  I have happily moved forward and like that we're in more contact. But if something concerning the DD community arises, and I am being asked by the ADDS readership to report on it,  I am going to be straightforward, share the facts and tell the truth. That's a responsibility to each one of you who come here and read these pages. I take that seriously and understand it's part of writing a DD Homepage site that includes everything happening in and throughout the community.

I was on that forum recently and wanted to be supportive of the owners who are embroiled in controversy since their involvement in the awful June 19th interview. The people there are wonderful and many are friends of mine and many come into The DD Community Chat Room (TDDCCR) and email or Instant Message me frequently. But, a couple people there were a little defensive and seemed unaware of what is happening outside of the forum. Since I was the one to bring up some information that the owners of the forum were either unaware of or decided not to bring up, some people there were actually unaware of DD being called a form of domestic violence. It was odd to say the least. And that's the main reason I am writing this article. 
I read everything going on in the DD community and keep my eyes and ears open in many different areas. I am constantly emailing, IMing, messaging and communicating with people from all areas our community. I feel it's part of the responsibility of writing this News, Information and Resource DD Homepage. But not everyone has the time and resources to read everywhere and find everything. So, outside of all those emailing/IMing etc, or discussing this subject occasionally in TDDCCR, I was wondering how many people didn't realize, or were still unaware of the negativity that is has happened and is currently happening in the media.
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In a comment on a forum run by the interviewee of the June 19th post, a question came up that I thought was important to answer. Below is an edited copy/paste. The original went beyond the pre and post June 19th focus of this article and the names has been changed.     

"Mami" commented and asked. >>> Is there really an outside community that is out to get us because we practice dd?  I can imagine some being concerned about it possibly being abusive. From an outside perspective it has traits that could align with that thinking...but if someone spent any amount of time on the forums, they would find it simply is not true. 

Before we proceed with my reply, I want to point out some things in that question/comment.

Why does Mami feel like she can imagine DD has anything to do with abuse??? Where is she reading?

Everything here on ADDS is focused on Consent, Communication and Patience. Even the first ADDS Overview page on this blog that comes from the first opening page of the first ADDS discussion group in 2005, starts with consensuality. The first article titled Where to Start: Beginning your DD lifestyle Together  in the Free DD Lifestyle Guide begins with consensuality, communication and patience as a focus of the article. DD has never been connected to abuse before June 19th and has never aligned with "that thinking." But then it becomes more clear, Mami only mentions if anyone spent time on the forums, as if she doesn't read outside of the forum.      

My reply:
Mami, thank you for commenting. I will break it down and do my best to explain.
Not sure if "out to get us" is correct. I'm surprised to find out people here don't know what's happening. But, Yes absolutely, there really is an outside world that is now targeting the DD community as abusive and that started because of Brandys libelous post and the interview within it. You may or may not have noticed unless you research outside of this one place, but the post on DB went viral and there is now a cornucopia of negative, false and misleading material out there that had never been there before.

Mami also stated in her comment: I consider this lifestyle to be a personal, private matter between me and my HoH... and I really couldn't care less what the rest of the world thinks about it. I think, BB that you personally can be a loud advocate for dd, but that everyone that agrees with or follows dd, does not have to be vocal.  I mean what is to gain by having someone outside say, "ok...I get it"...or "you arent as weird as I thought, this makes sense", etc.? 

You missed the point completely, thinking that the concern is for those who are not interested in this relationship choice or would not benefit from it. Just the opposite. We care enough to be vocal because there are always people interested in DD as a lifestyle choice that could highly benefit their lives and relationships. For every person who comes on to that  false information and either looks no farther or might feel they are less normal for their feelings, that hurts just to think about and it's a failure for this community. That's something often expressed by new people arriving, that they were afraid they were not normal until they found all the positive people and information. I have seen that sentiment through the years and it's even on this forum. There are those who will start looking for information and come upon any or many of the articles that were part of the viral onslaught, or the uneducated info beyond the articles against DD started by Brandy's post and the libelous interview. If even one person or couple is turned away from a choice that could have benefited them, that's terrible. I hope we all care about the newer people and people who will be new in the future that could benefit from a DD way of life.

I'll continue.
Do people here think it was just the Brandy post? That post was just the first that set off the viral attack that is all over the internet. It is there now and will always be there. Countless writers picked up the post and wrote piggy-back posts on all types of sites using the information Brandy put up and using our friends (interviewee)
There was been a panel put together for an online video interview focused on DD as abuse on HPost where Brandy was seated as the expert on DD!!! How nuts is that! It was so negative and based on Brandys information which she said comes from (interviewee), and others! I questioned Brandy about the "others" and why (interviewee) was the only ones quoted in the way they were... Brandy could not answer.
There was a FOX NEWS Radio interview where the interviewer pressed the couple being interviewed and it didn't turn out well. This has gone beyond online or just one post on one site.

When national or online interviews or articles are presented about domestic violence or domestic abuse, they of course bring a very high volume of interested people because as I hope we all agree, domestic abuse of any kind is sickening and a very real problem. Presenting DD and the people who agree with a DD relationship as either wife beaters or scared, timid partners does effect our community and the people who care about this community and those looking for information into the future.

In the past, NO misinformation linking DD to abuse. Since the Brandy interview using (interviewee)... too many to count.

The problem arises because it looks like the interviewee is speaking for the entire CDD community which is part of the DD community. And, Brandy says she has irrefutable proof that the interviewee gave the "Spanking for Jesus" interview exactly as it appears on the Beast interview. I personally contacted and questioned Brandy because I am an advocate for real and truthful DD info and I saw inconsistencies and uneducated information. I won't go into details here, anyone who has been aware of everything going on outside of this forum already knows all this.

 I am mentioning this here because I haven't seen any details of this information shared on this forum before. So I understand if people thought this was something between myself and the interviewee. It's not about myself and them at all. All the pain and damage now and into the future is not from just one post by Brandy either. Go outside this one forum, read what's on the past three articles on A Domestic Discipline Society, and the links on one of those articles, and then the post about how the interviewee and I began moving past a past our misunderstanding from last year.    http://adomesticdisciplinesociety.blogspot.com/2013/05/domestic-discipline-forum-blog.html

We are now and always have been one DD community.
I would hope that we all care about more then just ourselves, one couple or one site and extend our care to those who will be seeking the same information everyone else has found. That's you! 
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That was from the end of July. Here's some more information about pre & post June 19th.

* If you Goggle/search for domestic discipline information, there is an overwhelming number of negative and horribly unresearched posts across many sites calling DD abusive.
That was NEVER there before June 19th. There had only been an occasional post where someone just found information about DD and they had questions about it. But NOTHING like the posts connecting all DD to domestic violence and criminal behavior!
* If you Google/search for Christian Domestic Discipline information there is more horribly negative posts then positive ones that show up on the first 8 to 10 pages. That was NEVER like that before June 19th!
* When you Google for domestic discipline information, there's a drop down box that appears as a quick link to a related topics. It used to have topics like the word "marriage" placed at the end of the words domestic discipline. NOW, there is a "domestic discipline is abuse" as one of the choices that appears. That was NEVER there before June 19th!

That's the information that is now there that has NEVER been there before June 19th! That's the information that new people are now coming across while just trying to find about the reality of what Domestic Discipline is all about. Domestic Discipline has always been about consent first and foremost, but that's being muddled by all the misguided and false DD is abuse posts.

* On Twitter: There has never been negative Domestic Discipline comments and never ever one using a domestic discipline hash tag. Heck, I was the first one to ever use a domestic discipline hash tag several years ago! When I re-activated my Twitter account last September, I was so happy to see a lot of people using a domestic discipline hash tag, and all the info was wonderful and varied. Nothing negative there at all.
Recently tweets stating things like: "God doesn't say to spank anyone" and "Where in the bible does it say you should spank your spouse!" and there were several others to that same ilk. That NEVER happened before June 19th!

* I have been contacted 8 times in the past weeks to do interviews and 2 radio broadcasts. I researched each one and all were about mixing religion with Domestic Discipline and if spanking a spouse is abusive or not. I turned each one down and did my best to share some reality of what Domestic Discipline was about. None of them wanted to hear anything about Domestic Discipline being consensual and about communication and the relationship. They all wanted sensationalism over journalism! Then I was contacted by a woman named Sarah who is an intern for a radio broadcaster in Canada. I emailed back and forth with her several times and investigated the broadcaster and station etc. Everything looked alright and we confirmed an interview time and date. Two days later she contacted me. Apparently since I would not identify as someone who comes from the Christian Domestic Discipline area of Domestic Discipline... they were going to go with someone else who would. They admitted it was someone with little experience compared to myself, and she was kind while explaining that she wanted to go with my experience and appreciated that the information I shared was helpful in her hurried research for the interview. I told them I wouldn't lie and say I was CDD just to do an interview. I asked if there was any other reason, because I can speak about and explain the CDD area of DD with distinct clarity. She honestly replied, that after showing the broadcaster all the information I provided and the ADDS site... he said he wanted someone else, someone he could manipulate into getting what he wanted out the interview. What was sad is, it was the first potential interview that seemed to want to hear about the reality of Domestic Discipline.

In Conclusion:
When I and people in the DD community who have benefitted from a consensual relationship dynamic our whole adult lives, are now being called wife beaters and abusive, it's hard to see any kind of silver lining there. Criminal domestic violence has touched my life from a young age. I am passionate about this because I have seen the horrible effects of domestic violence on more then one family. I was personally blessed with a loving home, but witnessed up close that isn't always that way it is in every home. I have also lived a consensual loving relationship style of DD. I can't see any benefit connecting these two completely separate worlds in any way.   

DD is now being called a cover for those who are abusive, so those reading that who are actually abusive individuals will be gravitating toward DD when they never have before. Personally I feel that those individuals who have abusive tendencies are unhealthy and need professional help, and those who take it further and strike someone with malice, non consent or ill intent in their motives are criminals who need to be incarcerated. 

It's the people who would have been coming toward a respectful and consensual DD relationship style that are being pushed away when they read the overwhelming amount of unresearched and false information that is everywhere now. As usual, I've been in contact with so many people in the DD community through email and all the ADDS groups and we've been discussing this in the DD chat room. The general consensus so far is that many who read about DD for the first time as domestic violence, domestic abuse or any kind of criminal activity along those lines, are not thinking they want something like that in their lives and look no futher into adding it to their relationship. I don't blame them. I was appalled when I starting reading all the completely horrible false information that was being spread, and was deeply hurt that someone in our own community who was involved, did nothing to stop it. If all the information was fabricated, as it is being claimed, then one telephone call on the day the first post was released could have stopped all of this.   

Some out there along with myself are looking for anything positive that may come from all of these horrible times following Black Wednesday. A very well known and respected blogger, who writes the most well known Spanking blog on the planet, wrote and we had a wonderful email conversation that I highly appreciated. She made several points I agreed with, one of which is that in dark times like these we can try very hard to look for some kind of light at the end of the tunnel or a silver lining so to speak. I agree wholeheartedly.
We can't change the mistakes made by one or two people and can only look to changing the future for the people who will be seeking truthful information in the future. I couldn't agree more with the sentiments of not being able to change the past, and moving forward from where we are. To continue with that sentiment, I also believe when completely incorrect information is presented like what is in the media now, we can only change the future through sharing tolerant and caring truthful information based on the reality of our history and where we are in the present moment. While DD has always been based on consent first and foremost, it is presently being presented by the media as domestic violence and domestic abuse. It's also only being presented as a religious based, married only couples, led by an only male HoH who is controlling and punishing an only female spouse. And the female partner is being presented as meek and not an active participant in decision making and is someone who is trapped in a situation where they don't want to be a participant. Nothing that the media has taken from the June 19th article and everything prsented in the piggy back style posts since then could be farther from the truth. 

If the non consent and domestic abuse aspect is taken out, the rest is a throwback to 15+ years ago. There have been positive and dramatic changes through the years. DD was called many things before the mid 1990s that were more regionally based. After Windows 95 everyone could afford to have a personal computer in their home. As we all know, it changed many things in the distribution of information including our general lifestyle, Spanking and DD communities. The terminology and acronym of Domestic Discipline & DD itself came from Christian Domestic Discipline and CDD. People who didn't want to entwine their religious beliefs with their relationship choice of DD far outnumber those who led a biblically or scripture based version of DD. And CDD became just one version of a Domestic Discipline lifestyle choice. (there's a lot more info based around this area of the DD history, but this is getting to be a long email so I'll skip ahead a bit, lol) In 2005 ADDS was started as a place where everyone could come together, everyone was accepted and it was where the ideas of "DD is individual to each couple" was born. Female led DD was accepted, male TiHs, same sex couples and those who where CDD... everyone was encouraged to seek commonalities vs look for differences.

ok... so the reason I mention all of that, is because I wanted to share a tiny piece of the DD history and past from an advocate and insiders perspective. The present incorrect and harmful posts that fill peoples search pages now when they are seeking what DD and spanking relationships are about, are a step backward over 15 years. We have come so far from the old days when some people thought DD was what was being presented on the old LDD blog where it turned into a misogynistic and abusive male who humiliated and beat down a meek wife with oppressive top down rules and practices. Going back to that can't be an option, and the only way to move forward from where we are now is to continue sharing the openly tolerant, loving, caring and always consensual reality that... Domestic Discipline is Consensual and has nothing to do with the unresearched and inexperienced information that began June 19th.

IF, there is any kind of silver lining that might come from all of the info since Black Wednesday, it that there have been more conversations about what Consent is vs Non-Consent in a relationship, and we as a community are reaffirming our respectful, loving, consensual aspects within our community and relationships. 
The DD community in general is also looking more closely at the information they are receiving, reading and researching. Experienced, free and altruistic information is at a premium and appreciated more now then ever. 

There is more information about what has been happening, and opinions on why it's happening, and where the ideas of abuse are coming from more recently are being shared.
Come join us in The Domestic Discipline Community Chat Room
for a conversation about "Domestic Discipline & the Media" and other DD related topics.
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"Must Read" Related Links:
* Spanking Jesus is a hoax: The Reality of Domestic Discipline
* Defending Domestic Discipline: I Love my DD choice
* Domestic Discipline is Consensual: DD is Loving

Recommended Reading, based on DD Consent & dating back years:
* Domestic Discipline Lifestyle Definition
Domestic Discipline Relationship Characteristics
Characteristic of a Head of Household (HoH)
Domestic Discipline Appreciation & Reaffirmation
Beginning Domestic Discipline Plan & Process
What is Christian Domestic Discipline? A CDD Description 
Domestic Discipline: Experienced HoHs Perspective on DD Core Values & Home
HoH: Head of Household Rules (part of Free Guide/ not a list but info on how to create rules consensually)
Beginning DD (Series)
Keys to DD (Series)
Free DD Lifestyle Guide (Series/Guide)