Sometimes I can play a six-year-old. Other times I wouldn’t want to. Naughty wife, that’s a good one! It [all] depends on the person, the circumstance, the mood.
—EVE HOWARD
Interviewees believe that the ability to reexperience one’s childhood persona in the safe context of a consensual spanking is deeply relaxing. It relieves the tensions of adult life and puts the individual in touch with the inner child. As was discussed in Chapter 6, many people who relish ageplay—and particularly submissives—were required by parents or caregivers to behave maturely at an early age. The submissive may crave both the access to childish emotions and the resolution of inner conflicts through concerned discipline. The spanking feels like an act of love, which creates a tender bond between the disciplinarian and the disciplined.
HOW IT’S DONE
A spanking scene often begins with verbal domination, usually a scolding for misbehavior, imaginary or real. Many submissives playfully bait the dominant by inventing impish transgressions. Dominants usually seek to gain the upper hand psychologically before applying the palm, although the submissive often remains frisky, at least until he or she begins to reach a pain limit.
Spankers desire a happy ending: emotional resolution. The person spanked feels that he or she has been taught a valuable lesson and is somehow improved. The authority feels satisfied at having corrected the submissive’s behavior and by the sheer physical control of a willing partner. Couples often complete the scenario with cuddles and kisses.
Debate over the best spanking technique is endless. The conventional wisdom is that the dominant who begins slowly will be able to prepare the submissive for a longer and more erotically intense spanking. Sexual excitement permits the submissive to enjoy greater levels of pain.
I like a long, slow, sensual buildup; he shouldn’t start spanking hard right away. I like it to start slow-soft and then move to moderate-medium; after about 30 to 40 minutes of a buildup, I can take a very hard spanking. By that time I’m very excited.
—EVE HOWARD
Most spankers intersperse blows with caresses and rubbing of the buttocks. Some submissives will consent only to light, erotic spankings. Still, many devotees seek significant pain and lasting marks to make the punishment aspect more realistic.
Sometimes it may hurt to the extent that part of me wants it to stop. But a greater part of me wants it to keep going. I like to go back and take a look at the marks. It’s like a badge of honor to me. I like to sit down for the next few days and feel it—that’s a turn-on to me.
—HAROLD
Spankers also may be masochistic and wish to endure harsh physical punishment, including severe canings that leave significant bruises on the buttocks. For them, it is often a challenge and an accomplishment to accept as much discipline as the dominant can impose. In some cases such submissives feel that their willingness to bear the pain is both proof of their devotion to the dominant and proof of the dominant’s authority.
I want to please the dominant by proving to her I can take anything she can dish out! I like it when she will sense where I’m at, at my pain threshold, and just go over it ever so slightly. I want her to, because then she’s in control.
—HAROLD
IMPLEMENTS
Enthusiasts invest considerable time, energy, and money in stockpiling spanking implements, from the sophisticated exotica available at adult toy stores to more mundane equipment purchased at sporting-goods outlets and tack shops. One of our interviewees boasted of owning well over 50 different paddles, straps, and canes.
Making one’s own equipment is uncomplicated, and many people do just that. But equipment is easy to find: Virtually every tourist shop in the country has a small stock of paddles among its novelty items. One must wonder how many of those kitschy paddles, brightly decorated with puckish sayings and crude drawings of blushing schoolchildren, are eventually swatted across some feisty spouse’s buttocks, even if only in jest.
While some enthusiasts never go further than hand spankings, others are baroque in their tastes. Perhaps the most popular implements are paddles, particularly when they resemble those used for corporal discipline in schools. Some paddles have holes drilled in them so that air passes through, decreasing resistance and increasing the velocity of the blow. A paddle may leave bruises, depending on the force with which it is applied, the number of the blows, and the sensitivity of the recipient. Old-fashioned wooden hairbrushes (whose backs are used for spanking and whose bristles may be scraped across the tender skin for additional sensation), straps and belts, and canes are all well liked. The cane is a favorite tool for “naughty schoolboy or schoolgirl” scenarios. Used with force, it gives serious pain and leaves distinctive stripes, or welts.
A cane is great. It gives a sensation that’s different from anything else. A lot of people think it’s a devastating implement of punishment, but to me it isn’t. Sure, it hurts, but I want a spanking to hurt. It feels like somebody put like a hot iron across your rear end—but then it mellows down to a warm feeling. I like it when the strokes are spaced out so you can savor every one of them.
—HAROLD
While some spankers have a fetishistic interest in specific implements, many like the impromptu informality of using the nearest thing at hand. Dominants delight in experimenting with common household items. Virtually any object with a flat surface (the sole of a shoe, a wooden cooking spoon, a Ping-Pong paddle, and even books and magazines) can be used. Some spanking submissives are excited when a common item is used uncommonly, since the dominant’s ability to transform a mundane item into a punishment tool further asserts his or her dominance and confirms the recipient’s helplessness. Over time such objects may assume their own erotic importance: The memory of having been spanked with a copy of War and Peace may make the text memorable for a volume of reasons.
ATTIRE
Proper garb plays an important role in a spanking scenario. Purists almost universally dislike fetish clothing and express distaste for the “whips-and-chains” sartorial flamboyance of sadomasochists. Although some spanking enthusiasts (especially those whose interests overlap with other areas of D&S) may find exotic lingerie tantalizing, sober, businesslike garb or a collegiate, preppie look is almost always preferred.
Once a spanking begins, options vary as to how much of the submissive’s clothing remains in place. While some individuals find it exciting to be slowly undressed until they are completely naked, others wish to keep their panties in place and others consent to having only their buttocks revealed. The dominant almost always remains fully clothed throughout the experience, although a submissive may ask a dominant woman to raise her skirt above the knees so that he or she may rub against the dominant’s garters or hosiery. But even when the dominant is professional, the client often specifies that there be little or no direct sexual contact. The exceptions occur when spanking is used as foreplay to lovemaking, in which case anything goes.
LINGUISTIC ETIQUETTE
Spanking fetishists generally agree that only certain words should be used to refer to one’s posterior, and purists are fairly uncompromising in the belief that the colloquial use of ass is rude at the least and repugnant at most. (This rule does not necessarily apply to D&Sers.)
The term bottom is the hands-down favorite, but fanny, behind, rear end, buns, and cheeks follow closely. Also, keen interest is shown in phrases such as rosy bottom, rosy cheeks, and blushing bottom. Submissives generally relish being called naughty. Other choice words are: arrogant, brat, sassy, saucy, disobedient, ungrateful, slut, greedy, reprobate, and so on. In the case of allegedly misbehaving husbands, errant wins high marks. The use of profanity is widely frowned on as inappropriate, genuinely insulting, or offensive.
The importance that spanking enthusiasts place on linguistic refinement may reflect both the level of education and the religious or moral conservatism of many spankers. Verbal delicacy may also demonstrate that the authority is sincerely respectful of the submissive as
an equal partner.
HARD-AND-FAST RULES
Since the goal of an erotic spanking is the mutual pleasure and satisfaction of both partners, participants discuss in advance their expectations, physical and psychological limits, and favorite fantasies. Those who do not wish to be marked may feel traumatized and abused—not to mention furious—to discover that a clumsy dominant has left bruises. Some spankers are uncomfortable with ageplay and may feel distraught if the fantasy exceeds their emotional limits.
Spankers typically show a remarkable ability to enter into and to exit roleplaying quickly and absolutely, and wish to return to an egalitarian relationship once the scenario has concluded. The same authority that has an erotic zing during a spanking can be profoundly uninteresting outside of a consensual, playful, and erotic context. Exceptions exist, but almost exclusively among those who incorporate spanking into a larger power relationship and among the small minority of lifestyle spanking couples who remain in their roles at all times.
GAY SPANKING
Gay spanking is a separate and distinct scene. Daddy-boy (or uncle-nephew) fantasy scenarios bear the greatest resemblance to the heterosexual spanking scene and involve many of the same rituals. But a significant percentage of gay spankers derives its customs from the military and fraternity traditions of hazing, and specifically paddling rituals.
Known among gay spankers—and less frequently among heterosexuals—is switch spanking, in which partners spank each other during a scenario. In these cases neither partner is necessarily dominant or submissive; instead, the spanking is a game of one-upmanship.
INTERVIEWS
EVE HOWARD
[Spanking is] my profession. It’s my hobby. My closest associates and my best friends are all in the Scene. My partners are in the Scene. I met my boyfriend five years ago through a personal ad in a spanking publication. Everything that I do is related to [spanking]. I am a lifestyler completely and utterly. I have always been into [spanking] and nothing in the world could change it; it’s an integral part of me.
I like to be spanked, although I have given some spankings. I’m not particularly submissive. Spanking fits into D&S. One dominates [and] controls; one gives the spanking and one receives. But that’s not in somebody’s mind when they’re first beginning to relate to the idea of spanking. It starts in childhood, long before we know about anything sexually. I think when you’re a child, it’s almost a nameless-faceless thing. You can often initiate spanking games with playmates: I always did! By the time I got to junior high school, I was playing spanking games with my best girlfriends. We took turns being the dominant. We acted out an ongoing soap opera for years that always wound up with one of us getting spanked. The first time you have a boyfriend, you try to provoke him into spanking you. But it’s never the same as when you encounter somebody who’s really into it. The mind-set is different, and the excitement level is much higher.
I have, on my odyssey to get where I am, engaged in many D&S-type experiences involving submission, bondage, other forms of discipline and corporal punishment, corsetting, fetish apparel, rubber, leather, and high heels. I have witnessed many D&S sessions, because my best friend is a mistress, but I am primarily a spanking fetishist.
Spanking is an action fetish. A spanking person will become aroused merely by witnessing, hearing about, or talking about a spanking. If you see a spanking in an old movie, even though there isn’t any nudity in the scene—no sex whatsoever, only the spanking—that will be tremendously arousing. [Spanking] is a fetish because no other sexual things pertain at that moment. Most fetishes involve an object, but in spanking it’s the act in itself that is arousing. I [also] think it’s important to distinguish between D&S and spanking. One can be into spanking without knowing anything at all about D&S or S&M. Spanking is rather innocent. It often doesn’t involve any equipment [or] costumes—just two people engaging in the act.
I like to have things done to me, rather than serving. Most submissives are characterized [as] serving others. I don’t agree. I think that most submissives enjoy having things done to them. It’s very confusing, because sometimes a master may require body service or want the slave on her knees giving him head, but in reality I think most submissives want to be passive and have the things done to them. By nature and by personality, I am very dominant. I don’t like humiliation. I don’t like the concept of being punished, because I feel like I’m good and doing the best I can. I just like the control of a man who will spank me, who will make love to me in a forceful manner.
Usually when you’re a child, [and if] you’re getting spanked mildly or almost affectionately, there is a feeling of loving control that’s being imparted. This [doesn’t] hold true for people who have been brutalized or abused as children. I recall being aroused by spanking fantasies as early as age three. I can only conclude that my father probably spanked me very mildly when I was still an infant … a patting kind of thing. The feelings I associated with this were pleasurable, and it [imprinted] in my brain. When you’re first aroused by it, you don’t even know what arousal is. You just know that there’s something wonderful about spanking. I think later on when you start to recognize the difference between boys and girls, you sexualize the fetish and want to play spanking [games with] a little boy or even a little girl.
My favorite kind of spanking is given by a man that I like, respect, and enjoy being with. It should always be over the knee. I like it to begin on my skirt and to have the layers of clothing slowly pulled up and pulled down. I like a good deal of rubbing. I like touching with a spanking, being fingered. I like to be talked to, but it’s not that important. I certainly don’t like to be berated, scolded, or humiliated. “You’ve been a bad girl” is okay.
It’s important to be held in the right way: held around the waist very firmly with one hand, as the other hand spanks. I don’t like fancy leg locks that hold me in place. That always makes me afraid that somebody’s going to spank me hard. There should be subtlety. I should always feel that the man cares for me, likes me a good deal. I don’t like to feel that somebody is just beating a piece of meat—that’s not me.
I’ve had some harrowing spanking experiences, because I have played a lot—experiences that made me cry bitterly within the first five minutes. A lot of people into spanking like those tears; they want to cause suffering and pain. I don’t exactly know why. I think a lot of people just have a problem. They don’t like women very much, or they don’t like themselves very much, or they’re vicariously putting themselves in the place of the spankee, and they feel that’s how hard they should be punished. That’s not what I enjoy. I like a sensuous spanking.
I can do a scenario very easily. I’m more comfortable with some than with others. But I don’t need a scenario. All the excitement is in my mind already. It’s the feeling of control that turns me on—firm, loving control from the man. Sometimes the scenario almost gets in the way of the enjoyment, but at other times it’s very appropriate. It’s good for a beginner to use a scenario. It gives you somewhere to go. A lot of people into spanking have highly detailed scenarios. That’s all part of it. I think people into spanking should try scenarios and then move to the point where they don’t need them anymore.
I like bondage if it’s done properly. I have been in some extreme bondage where you’re very intricately and symmetrically tied and where certain parts of your body can be exposed, caressed, spanked sometimes, teased. Often tickling goes along with spanking, but I don’t see the value of it. I have engaged in enema play. That’s a big turn-on for me and very common to spanking people. That’s when I’m feeling at my most submissive. Sometimes I’ve done that to the extent that I got too submissive and I don’t want to do it again for a year!
“Too submissive” is when you feel so vulnerable you almost lose your soul. You lose your identity. You’re nothing but a squirming, writhing thing. This society teaches you that we have to be strong and assert ourselves and go out and get what we want. When you’re that su
bmissive, it goes against the teachings of what a proper human being should be, and you become almost disgusted with yourself. You have to do a scene with a so-called “real master” before you realize that a lot of these real masters are just pompous idiots! I would never kiss a man’s feet. I think that’s insulting and ridiculous, although I’ve let a lot of men kiss my feet. I would never rim a man. I would never worship a man, nor do I want anybody to worship me. I believe in equality of the sexes.
I think it’s good that feminists come out and admit to being D&Sers, because some people don’t think that you can be a feminist and be a submissive at the same time, which is utterly false. I think that if a woman is doing what she needs to do to fulfill her own sexuality, then she is a feminist, whether that sexuality means being the dominant one or being the submissive one, or being somewhere in the middle.
I’ve been very privileged in being allowed to live out many fantasies. There really isn’t anything that I haven’t done within the realm of D&S that I would still like to do. Last week I shot a video. When I wrote the scenario I got turned on. It was [about] a married couple into spanking going to visit and socialize with another married couple into spanking, and the spankings took place during the actual double-date situation in a very charming and delightful way: just a very normal, mischievous wife-moderately-controlling-husband spanking situation where all of the participants were attractive, the setting pleasant, the costumes delightful. I got to work one of the cameras and see my fantasy come to life before my eyes. It was wonderful.
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