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Many people who like spanking initially wonder if they're the only ones, or if there is something weird or particularly kinky about their desires. It's easy to feel isolated about sexual desires that aren't "mainstream," particularly ones that incorporate strong sensations or pain. However, a surprisingly large number of people do desire that kind of strong sensation in their sex lives, whether it takes the form of spanking or something else, like people who like really intense nipple play with lots of biting and nipping, or the folks who love having a lover rake his or her nails over tender skin. It's our cultural tendency towards silence that makes this stuff seem invisible, but research has proven that it's always bubbling away just out of sight. The way the body processes sensations is a highly variable and personal thing. Depending on the context, the degree of psychological comfort, the degree of sexual arousal, and other factors, many of us have the ability to feel intense pleasure from sensations that someone might say seemed like they must be painful. Spanking is just one of these. However, it's pretty easy to understand why spanking can feel so good sometimes: think about where all that sensation, attention, increased blood flow, and hypersensitized flesh is in relation to your genitals! Let's just say that there's a reason that patting someone on the butt is usually seen as a sexual gesture, while patting them on the shoulder or the back is usually not. It can also be very sexy to feel like you are being controlled or disciplined. The appeal of being controlled or disciplined is that it allows you to give up a bit of your own control, to have someone more powerful than you step in and take over a little bit. Particularly when that person is someone you are attracted to and someone you trust and know will take good care of you, it can be a supremely heady sensation to give in to being controlled as part of a sexual scene. I think it's important to understand that the desire to be controlled or disciplined, particularly through spankings, as you're expressing it here, is actually a sexual or at least an erotic desire. Just because it doesn't directly involve your genitals doesn't mean it isn't sex! The important factor is the eroticism of the gesture and the sensation, and the fact that you want that gesture of discipline or control and the sensation of being spanked to come from someone with whom you have an erotic and sexual relationship. What I mean by this is that there are times and situations where spanking will feel erotic and pleasurable to you, and times when it definitely would not. If your doctor, your mother, or your hairstylist decided to put you over their knee because they felt you'd Îmisbehaved,' you'd probably be much more outraged than aroused. You'd probably feel similarly if your husband decided to spank you at your place of work, or in front of his family. Those would be inappropriate places for him to do that, first of all, and second of all, those are places and times in which you have the reasonable expectation of being able to be your own person, responsible for your own actions and words. Giving up control for your own or mutual pleasure is an active decision on your part -- you give it up consciously and because you want to, usually for specific reasons and at specific times. Giving up control to your husband during an erotic spanking session would probably be very sexy and hot for you. But having control taken away from you forcibly, without your consent, is abusive even if the person who takes your control away doesn't hurt you physically. There's a big difference between being spanked because you want to, and being hit (even if it's the same sort of physical action) when you don't. Context, in other words, is everything. It sounds to me like your desire to be spanked is very strong. It might be well worth your while to think about talking to your husband about it. If you present it as a form of sex play and tell him that you would find it very hot if he would, for instance, put you over his knee and spank you as part of foreplay, the likelihood is pretty good that he'd take the notion well. He may not be ready to take on the top role and be controlling or disciplining toward you right off the bat, but chances are good that if presented with a way to make you wriggly, wet, and totally turned on, he'll jump at the chance to experiment. Frankly, for my money, I think that's where you ought to start with this, anyway. Get familiar with the kinds of spankings and physical sensations you like first, well before you start playing around with the psychological end of things. Do you like being spanked only on your butt? What parts of your butt? Do you like it on the tops of your thighs, or do you perhaps also like having your pussy spanked? Do you prefer hard spanks, or light ones, or a combination, perhaps starting with light ones and working your way up? There's a lot of variation here, even if you're just being spanked with someone's hand. Once you start adding other implements -- like a leather paddle, for instance, or a hand in a leather glove -- the possibilities become even more complicated. When I spank partners, I find that an open-palmed swat is usually the best way to start. I can find out easily how hard they like it, what parts of their butt and legs and/or vulva they like having spanked, and feel how they react under my hand. I find that there is usually a "sweet spot" at the upper inner edge of the back of the thigh and the area of the butt-cheek right above it, to either side of that lovely crevasse between the cheeks, that really zings the sensation right into the most erogenous zones. It's easiest to target that area with your hand, particularly if you're new to spanking and your aim with other types of implements might not be as good. In increasing order of severity, I also like to spank while wearing a leather glove, or use a leather paddle. Sometimes I will use a ruler or paint-stirring stick, but those can be a little more severe than I like, since I like to warm up my partner's fanny with spankings rather than raise welts. Only if I am with a partner I know well, and whom I know likes it hard, will I pull out a wooden hairbrush. People talk a lot about using hairbrushes for spankings, but frankly, I think they're way too brutal for most spanking sessions. A hairbrush hurts more than you think it will! However, hairbrushes do have their uses: dragging the bristles over a bright-red, tingly, freshly spanked bottom can provide all sorts of wonderful sensations. Whether or not you ultimately incorporate the psychological play, the aspects of being controlled, disciplined, or dominated, into your spanking fun is another issue. I strongly recommend that both you and your partner read up on BDSM issues and particularly the top/bottom or Dominant/submissive aspect of BDSM before you make any decisions about this. Particularly when you live with your partner, you need to find out what limits you both need in order to still have your own autonomy and freedom, both sexually and personally, while still participating in the D/S dynamics that you enjoy. I suggest Jay Wiseman's wonderful book SM 101, and The Compleat Spanker by Lady Green (both available from Greenery Press), both of which will give you plenty of info from very experienced spankers and spankees. In a way, spanking is a really good illustration of just how fine the line between "regular" or "vanilla" sexual activity and so-called "kinky" sexuality really is. A pat on the fanny, or a partner who lightly spanks his lover's butt while they are engaged in sex play or while fucking seems really very ordinary. It's not such a far cry from that to being draped over your partner's knee while she or he gives you a healthy spanking that really warms your hide· and only a bit further on to being bent over and paddled, or doing a scene where you're dressed up like a schoolgirl and your partner, playing the role of a teacher, is mock-scolding you before "punishing" you in a hot spanking role-play scene. Any or all of these can have a place in your sex life, and none of them are "sick" or "wrong." There are a lot of different ways to play sexually with yourself or with a partner. As long as you approach spanking -- or whatever kind of sex play you enjoy -- in a safe, sane, consensual manner, you will rarely do yourself or anyone else wrong. Be bold and honest enough to be articulate about what you want, sensible enough to do a little reading so that you know what you're getting into, and you should have no trouble staying sexy and aroused enough to enjoy it! Want to ask the Fat Broad a question? Email her. |
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12.07.06: Scarlet Letters -- in case it isn't glaringly obvious -- is currently
on an extended hiatus. The web has changed, we've changed, and
we're trying to figure out how we both fit together now, which isn't a process we want to rush. If you're looking for more current SL-related content, you can
have check out upcoming books from editor Heather Corinna and previous co-editor Hanne Blank, check out Heather's current sexuality sites, or explore sites through the femmerotic network. We hope to be back with you soon, as fresh, challenging and
unexpected as ever.
In the meantime, by all means, enjoy our years of past content,
all of which still remain in the public and subscription areas.
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