WWW- [Village Voice]- I don’t remember the first time I got spanked (though it was definitely well into adulthood), but for the past few years I’ve craved it often. Nothing makes me wetter than bending over in preparation for a hard spanking. Well, nothing except the actual feeling of a hand forcefully swatting my ass cheeks, again and again. Most people associate spankings with either celebration or punishment, but you don’t need to be a birthday boy or bad girl to enjoy being paddled. Some of us simply need it, and take my word, it’s as pleasurable for the spanker as it is for the spankee. Just thinking about it turns me on, and I’m not the only one.
Butt-blistering enthusiasts abound. Groups such as Chicago’s Crimson Moon, Dallas/Fort Worth’s Bottoms Up, Vancouver’s Cherrywood, and the Southern Spanking Society cater to a special kind of booty call. Right here in the city, we’ve got Paddles, the Eulenspiegel Society’s (TES) spanking special-interest group, and the Spanking Club of New York.
Blogs such as All Things Spanking (allthingsspanking.com), Spankophille (spankophille33.blogspot.com) and Spanking Blog (spankingblog.com) pay tribute to reddened asses, offering first-person accounts and news from the land of upturned bums. Shadow Lane (shadowlane.com) holds annual spanking parties and sells videos like Suburban Brat, Sore Losers, and Bad Girls Get Spanked.
I recently edited the erotica anthology Naughty Spanking Stories From A to Z, Volume 2, and what amazes me is just how varied the motives for spanking can be, from a lighthearted thrill to foreplay, or punishment of the highest order. As I state in the book, spanking means many things: “Love, anger, sublimation, awakening, desire, fulfillment, foreplay, fun, prodding, patience, surrender, exhibitionism, demand, pride, want, lust, punishment, reward, humiliation, power, surprise, daring, learning, lessons, teasing, and goodbye.”
The possibilities are infinite, and the range of implements (from belts to shoes) and locations (from the Chunnel to a furniture store) as vast as the characters’ motives.
For me, the most important quality in a spanking is my relationship with the spanker: I need to be extremely attracted to him or her, and also a little bit afraid. At the same time, there must be a certain level of trust in order for me to let someone thrash my tush-let’s face it, it hurts. I’ve also been known to dole out lashes on occasion. Because I know how intense the sensations can be, I identify with their bent-over poses. Seeing my marks on a lover’s perfectly curved ass and hearing his or her moans of pleasure is intoxicating. I need to know they’re enjoying it.
Self-appointed “Princess of Spanking” Katie Spades might be more of a spanking slut than I am. She’s turned her reddened ass into her livelihood with a blog (spankingkatiespades.blogspot.com) where you can read about her boyfriend, Jake, punishing her and how she feels while getting hit. Spades got her first taste of spanking from a boyfriend at 19. “He grabbed me by the right arm and put me over his lap and spanked me really hard,” she wrote in one entry. “I had no idea this hurt so much. I began to cry from the pain and thought that possibly crying would make him stop, but I was incorrect and the spanking continued.” The experience left Katie with a “throbbing bottom” and teary eyes, but it also kick-started a true obsession. Even as she struggled through the spanking-half-wanting it to end-she realized “this was what I had been missing all this time.”
To those not versed in the special joy of spanking, Katie’s description may sound disturbing. But if you’ve been spanked before, it makes sense. That push-pull, pain-pleasure combo is part of why so many people love a good smackdown. I take pride in being able to absorb increasingly hard blows and am awed that the momentary pain gives way to the most intense arousal I can conjure.
“There is a level of intimacy in spanking that no matter how intense other s/m acts are, really can’t be rivaled, especially with over the knee,” says Mike S., a TES board member who’s led many workshops on spanking. “There’s an emotional heft to it that’s quite profound.” Both Mike and Katie knew from very early on that spanking was a turn-on. Katie was looking up the word in encyclopedias at eight years old, while Mike spanked a girl for the first time at four. For him, spanking’s a “core kink” that is “always erotic” on some level. Without it, both say their lives would be incomplete.
While Katie’s spankings always have a punishment aspect to them, she doesn’t consider herself Jake’s kinky toy. “Although Jake spanks me, in my regular life I am a total obsessive-compulsive perfectionist control freak,” says the 21-year-old model and student. She bottoms to him under very controlled circumstances, and lets him know when he’s annoyed her. In other words, Jake may “own” her ass, but he doesn’t control it. “Neither of us is into domination or submission,” she says. “He wouldn’t want a doormat for a partner, nor would I want to be one.”
The bottoms get most of the attention, though tops get off on ass smacking too; it’s a visual and aural treat. “The reaction I get from varying the spankings and the surprised yelps from an unexpected smack are my favorite aspects,” says Jake. As Katie’s official punisher, he likes that she can take harder spankings than any of his previous girlfriends could. Mike savors everything from a sub kicking her legs and addressing him as “Sir,” to seeing a woman rub her ass (or struggle not to) after she’s been spanked, relishing every aspect of the sensual process.
The mental and emotional side of spanking is often the most erotic. Whether you’re into role-playing or simply sensation, spanking can take you places you’ve never dreamed of going. The spankee is utterly vulnerable, while the spanker gets the joy of making someone squirm. There’s a euphoria that comes with a sore ass that simply cannot be topped, so to speak, because it transcends the physical. Just writing about it makes me horny. All this spanking talk has reminded me that I turned 31 recently and never received my much-desired birthday spankings. I’ll have to rectify that sad omission ASAP.