I spent the night and the next day [with this mistress]. I considered it a great privilege. She made no effort to release me from the chastity belt. We didn’t talk about it. I was beginning to realize and enjoy what it means—rather than fantasizing about being completely under the control of another individual—to really have it happen. That was probably the most satisfying thing.
*It is important to distinguish bondage in the modern context from the term used by such scholars as Magnus Hirschfeld and Richard von Krafft-Ebing. By sexual bondage they meant a mental condition of subservience or overweening dependence upon another: It had nothing to do with being tied up.
Eleven
SPANKING
Although spanking is commonly associated with the disciplining of children, adult spankings long have held an accepted, often humorous, place in popular culture. Spankings in films, for example, are usually depicted as an expression of male authority over misbehaving women: John Wayne asserted himself over Maureen O’Hara (McLintock!), and Howard Keel “tamed” Kathryn Grayson (Kiss Me Kate) in an adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Even television macho Latino Ricky Ricardo took the impish Lucy over his lap (I Love Lucy) after one of her scatterbrained pranks. Such nonconsensual, male chauvinistic spankings have generally been portrayed as a spirited woman’s due.
Spanking is not merely the stuff of sexist Hollywood fantasy or childhood punishment. A coterie of enthusiasts enjoy the experience (whether giving or receiving) as an enhancement to their sexuality. So widespread is the interest in adult spanking that a proliferation of videos, audiotapes, magazines, books, and newsletters caters uniquely to spankers. In this chapter we hear from four individuals who share insights into their enjoyment.
• Eve Howard is an entrepreneur, editor, writer, producer, video star, and publisher. Ms. Howard’s company, Shadow Lane, publishes Stand Corrected magazine. She is single, 37 years old, and lives in Los Angeles.
• Harold is 45 years old and an attorney. He is married and has children. He is a regular churchgoer.
• Kiri Kelly has appeared in scores of bondage, spanking, and fetish videos and magazines. She is 33 years old and divorced. She lives in California.
• David C. is a stage actor and musician. He is 28 years old and single. He lives in New York City.
THE TALE OF SPANKING
Spanking has always been an acknowledged form of lighthearted play between partners. The Kama Sutra offers advice “On the Various Modes of Striking, and on the Sounds Appropriate to Them.” The Kama Sutra delineates not only the appropriate places to strike (including the buttocks) but the four kinds of blows and the eight kinds of sounds which lovers should make. The text suggests that rough play may be an intrinsic aspect of sex, with a clear implication that the striking is done by men as a manifestation of natural masculine energy, though “the excitement of passion … may sometimes cause contrary results to appear,”1 and women may do some striking of their own.
There are no contemporary statistical studies on spanking and little formal research specific to it. Human-sexuality scholars view spanking as an aspect of sadomasochism. According to the Kinsey Institute,
If spanking is necessary for sexual arousal it is categorized under the paraphilia called sadism. And if being spanked is required for sexual arousal it is called masochism.2
While this hardly makes it so, many spankers (whether giver or receiver) vehemently insist that they have nothing in common with sadomasochists. And while the act of spanking may be an intrinsic aspect of much D&S lovemaking, spanking purists rarely pursue other forms of dominant or submissive activity.
Early clinical sexual theorizing focused on the correlation between spankings in childhood and a recurring craving for spankings in adulthood. Havelock Ellis, and later Wilhelm Stekel, described cases of children who achieved orgasm as the culmination of a spanking. Magnus Hirschfeld elaborated on the effects of spanking of children. He noted that “this does not mean that a few smacks on its behind will damage every child sexually for life … It is, however, an undeniable fact this method of chastisement … very frequently leads to a deflection of the child’s sexual impulse.”3 Hirschfeld cites other researchers to demonstrate how spankings defeat their punishment purposes by providing the young victims with erotic stimulation. But he stressed that a child’s inherent makeup ultimately determines whether she will become a sadist or a masochist.
In the 1940s Eustace Chesser described the case of a female client who recalled being frequently threatened with an over-the-knee spanking by her parents and who subsequently sought out opportunities to reenact this scenario throughout adolescence and adulthood. The spanking enthusiasts with whom we spoke rarely recalled being spanked as children, but many remembered witnessing spankings. All acknowledged that their fantasies began in childhood.
My fantasies started when I was probably about seven years old. I didn’t even know what sex was. But I started fantasizing about being captured and tied up. I also started spanking myself.
—KIRI KELLY
I didn’t get spanked as a child, but there was a strict German family who had a daughter and a son next door. I was about nine. The father spanked the children with a strap. They would talk about it like it was the most natural thing in the world. I would look at [the girl] and have all these visions: “Boy, I’d like to see that happen to her!” Then the boy would get spanked, and I thought, Gee, I wonder what that feels like. I’d like somebody to do that to me.
—HAROLD
Some enthusiasts reported that a spanking was the only time in childhood when they had physical contact with their parents. Others received memorable spankings during puberty from teachers or baby-sitters. The association between spanking and pleasure seems, in nearly all cases, to become firmly fixed in the erotic imagination at an early age.
WHAT IS IT?
Spanking is a form of corporal punishment in which blows are inflicted—almost exclusively—on the buttocks. To the devotee, a spanking must fulfill certain criteria, which make the experience believable, and must follow rules of etiquette, so that the experience is pleasurable to both parties. It is difficult to inflict any real injury in spanking the buttocks, particularly if one uses the hand, a factor that adds to its attractiveness. However, thresholds for real pain differ with individuals, so in order to make it a truly pleasurable experience, one must know where this threshold lies with one’s partner and with oneself, and not go beyond it. A spanking may occur as foreplay to coitus or other conventional sex acts, or it may be pursued for its own sake.
Many enthusiasts have difficulty accepting their unusual erotic interest.
I consider myself a relatively gentle and caring lover. It has been very difficult for me to reconcile that identity with the side of me that loves to give and receive spankings. My journey … has been to reconcile that seemingly unreconcilable dichotomy between what I enjoy sexually and who I see myself as sexually.
—DAVID C.
The spanking’s duration and severity are matters of individual preference. The recipient usually wants the giver to inflict as much stimulation as is tolerable without severe pain or upset, but this limit obviously varies from person to person and is often carefully negotiated.
The favored position for a spanking is over the knee. Spanking submissives describe the thrill of being hoisted onto a partner’s lap, ankles lifted off the ground, erogenous zones pressing against the dominant’s lap.
[In spanking] the position is of paramount importance. When you’re in the over-the-knee position, your genitals are in contact with a surface [and stimulated]. You’re getting spanked from above, so the impact is pressing you against what you’re leaning on.
—EVE HOWARD
Other popular positions for spanking include being bent over a chair, a bench, a desk, a bed, or a table. Spanking benches, whose precise design varies according to the client’s specifications, are popular. Typically, a spanking bench has a surface at a height comfor
table enough for the recipient to bend over, and features restraints for ankles, wrists, or both.
Men and women may occasionally achieve orgasm from giving or receiving a spanking.
Sometimes you get the extra stimulation that takes you all the way to orgasm. I wouldn’t say it happens more than five percent of the time for me. With my boyfriend, whenever he spanks me, we always have sex afterwards. With other people that I’ve played with, I sometimes had sex with them afterwards.
—EVE HOWARD
While achieving a climax after a spanking is often desirable, spanking enthusiasts agree that the spanking itself often provides complete gratification.
A spanking need never culminate either in sex or [in] an orgasm to be satisfying to a spanking person. However, it often serves as foreplay. In most instances spankings are highly sexual and, in and of themselves, immensely satisfying.
—EVE HOWARD
Some individuals feel that sex detracts from the spanking experience. They wish only to enjoy the disciplinary and punishment aspects. Sex, in such a case, would be an undeserved reward and would infringe on the credibility of the punishment.
Sexual intercourse is never a part of [a spanking]. I have to feel that I’m being disciplined for something I did wrong. If it’s pure discipline, you’re not going to be rewarded when it’s over by having any type of sexual intercourse.
—HAROLD
Spankers cite many reasons why they do not elect to combine sex and spanking. Those whose mates disapprove of spanking, for example, may seek nonsexual relationships outside of their primary partnership to realize their spanking fantasies. They may be adamant about remaining monogamous insofar as actual sexual contact is concerned.
The joy, completion, or relaxation that a submissive experiences after a spanking are comparable to postcoital feelings.
[After a spanking] I really feel laid-back. It is therapeutic to me. It’s my drug of choice. I don’t do drugs or drink, but spanking gives me the same thing that one might get from smoking marijuana or drinking alcohol. It makes me feel good.
—HAROLD
Enthusiasts often feel a conflict between their enjoyment of spanking and their discomfort at breaching taboos. In general, spanking purists tend to be highly conservative. Yet many spanking scenarios flirt with a profound cultural taboo: incest. It is not surprising that those who seek out incestuous roleplaying seem most likely to express an aversion to consummating the spanking with sexual activity. Indeed, the lack of explicit sexuality in the encounter reinforces the incest taboo, rather than threatens it.
In spanking, as in D&S, a majority of partners are “switchable” and will experiment with giving and receiving. Usually, role reversal does not occur within a scenario: Partners switch roles at different times.
SPANKING IN A D&S CONTEXT
Most, if not all, D&Sers who practice corporal punishment include spanking as a part of their play. They generally have fewer (or no) rules governing equipment, techniques, apparel, scolding, or preferred positions, and they may do little or no roleplaying. In a D&S context spankings are seldom intended to enforce a feeling of childishness. Instead, a spanking is likely to enhance the submissive’s sense of physical vulnerability or is performed simply to give the submissive pain. And, while blows are ordinarily directed to the buttocks, some may also fall onto the upper thighs (some spanking purists will accept slaps to their thighs; others will not) and other sensitive areas. D&Sers may spank breasts and genital regions, though with far less force than is applied to the buttocks.
For spanking purists who are specifically interested in and aroused by the spanking itself, the spanking scenario is an elaborate, ritualized erotic art. For D&Sers a spanking is more likely to be one of innumerable activities which enhance the power dynamic. For most D&Sers the power dynamic often predates and supersedes the act of spanking; whereas, for the pure spanker, the act of spanking defines the power dynamic.
WHAT THEY LIKE
The interests that spankers describe range over a spectrum of individual preferences. Several factors, however, seem common: authority, erotic coercion and humiliation, and ageplay.
For the duration of the spanking experience, spankers enjoy the feeling that an authoritarian figure has assumed total control. The authority may be benevolent (for example, a parental figure who lovingly corrects behavior); or it may be capricious or possibly cruel (for example, an employer who takes unfair advantage of his or her authority). The credibility of the authority is a matter of extreme importance.
One means of engendering credibility is by gently exceeding the submissive’s pain expectations. Spanking submissives seek out partners who, while compassionate, are capable of being strict and even slightly intimidating during play.
When I finally brought up my desires … it was fun, but something was missing, because [the men] weren’t into it. I got involved with a man for a brief period of time because he was kinky. It was just a part of his soul. It wasn’t a husband or a boyfriend saying, “Is this too hard?” as he’s spanking me, trying to get into it but afraid of hurting me. This man would take off his belt and use that or a whip. It was more intense; it was realer.
—KIRI KELLY
In spanking, as in sex, attitude and creativity are vastly more important than physical attributes. The ability of the dominant to convey genuine authority is usually far more important than how the dominant looks. Male submissives may prefer older, matronly women, but just as many are titillated by being disciplined by a slender, youthful woman reminiscent of a baby-sitter. Women generally show a preference for fatherly figures.
Successful spanking dominants pride themselves on their ability to intuit what the submissive needs. This adds to the plausibility of the surrender scenario.
Explaining what I like to a partner is explaining the whole psychological aspect of the act of spanking, whereas part of the turn-on is surrendering control—not offering direction but being taken.
—DAVID C.
Although some spanking devotees do not perceive any of the activities associated with spanking to be humiliating but perceive encounters as purely playful, erotic coercion and humiliation are typical aspects of a spanking. Recipients often fantasize that they are compelled to accept the discipline, and one of the dominant’s tasks is subtly to persuade the submissive that he or she cannot resist the inevitable. One means of persuasion entails subjecting the submissive to erotic embarrassment. In all cases a crucial distinction is made between erotic humiliation—which enhances mutual pleasure or believability—and uncaring or insulting attacks.
It’s important to me to get the feeling that my partner is enjoying what [she’s] doing. Encounters where I am submissive and my partner says to me, “You worthless piece of shit, I don’t know why I bother taking time to see you” do nothing for me. I don’t get the reinforcement that everybody is enjoying themselves.
—DAVID C.
Submissives may feel pleasurably humiliated when their garments are pulled down and gathered around their ankles to expose their buttocks and genitals. Others are embarrassed when spanked over their underpants. Panties may be worn by men as well as women: Some nontransvestite heterosexual men wish to wear ladies’ undergarments during a spanking to increase their humiliation. This interest in lingerie is usually confined to its use in a spanking encounter.
Panties are a part of the humiliation. I never have worn panties in any other context. I think it gives a dominant greater power and makes me meeker and more under her control. To be totally controlled by the woman is very important to me. What could be more humiliating than [when she says], “You thought you were a tough boy, but I’m going to dress you up as a girl and spank you like a girl”?
—HAROLD
Rituals are common in spanking. Some individuals will always select a paddle that is associated with a particular kind of infraction; the very presence of the implement is symbolic. Additionally, each element of the scenario may have important psychological
and ritualistic meaning to the partners. For some spanking enthusiasts, in fact, nothing less than a closely scripted, rigidly specific scenario will do. They discuss every detail before the spanking commences and leave little or no room for improvisation.
Rituals may dictate how the spanking is administered, particularly in punishment fantasies. The dominant may, for example, assign a predetermined number of blows as the penalty for a particular infraction and may require the submissive to count the number of spanks aloud. Thus, a boisterous riposte may translate into 25 spanks, a refusal to say, “Yes, ma’am” may translate into 50 spanks, and so on.
“Corner time” is another favorite ritual. The submissive partner is made to stand in a corner with his or her reddened buttocks exposed. The exposure is sensual (cool air on tingling, warm cheeks), embarrassing (an act which children may suffer), and exhibitionistic. This combination can be irresistibly exciting for a spanking fan.
Although there are differences between male and female spankers, in body as well as in attitudes, they share an interest in ageplay. While acting and being treated as childish is often considered to be shameful in our society, where maturity is respected and children are not, most spanking practitioners find childishness erotic in a spanking context. Spankers who wish to be spanked and then put into diapers or baby clothes are not uncommon. More common still is juvenilist roleplaying, which may include scoldings and age-appropriate clothes such as short, frilly frocks and underwear, and flat-heeled, patent leather shoes. Also popular are adolescent fantasies where the submissive is treated as an unruly teenager or a sassy young college student who cannot maintain good grades. Some, of course, do not wish to be seen as any other age but their own.
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