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T H E_.H O T_.S P O T
Is it sex, or is it art? ___________________ Satisfy all your intellectual urges at barnesandnoble.com!
R E C E N T L Y
Two concepts of sexual hysteria
The shipping nudes
Sade off
Two hard men are good to find
|  |  THE GENTLEMANLY ART OF SPANKING | PAGE 1, 2 - - - - - - - - - - This is rather strange turf we enter at this point -- the turf across which the archetypal cartoon caveman is dragging his beloved, whom he has just clubbed, to his cave. The older I get the less I know about fundamental motivations for human behavior. God knows I can barely explain my own behavior sometimes. Do women act out of line? Without a doubt. Are they testing their mates? Perhaps. Right now, this moment, I find myself wondering if regular spankings might have saved my marriage, had I cared enough, had I had the will, courage and conviction to demonstrate that care. I don't think so -- it was over. You go down that path a few more steps and you are O.J. Simpson. Nonetheless, Whittle very eloquently makes his case for spanking, for the emotional, as opposed to erotic, leverage it brings to a relationship as a stabilizing force. While I cannot vouch for their authenticity, he posts many letters from women who share his views. Here is an excerpt: "Women cannot, and will not, respect perceived weakness or any man that will not fight for their relationship," wrote one of his many adulatory female correspondents. "So, I want you to understand that I really believe you have tapped into a pulsing, unseen vein in society that needs to be oxygenated, explored and put out there in print. Spanking is not simply some strange fetish used for sexual arousal and enjoyment! ... I have said for years that spanking was an emotional issue -- a heart issue that has very little to do with sex to start. Now to have a deep need met with a spanking will definitely endear you LUSTILY to the one you now see as a savior of your insecurities, but it still starts, in my opinion, with basic, unmet, emotional needs. Perhaps it is too embarrassing for many to take spanking out of the sexual realm." This was interesting -- especially since it was so contrary to much of what we have heard from women over the past 30 years of the "I prefer kind men who can express their feelings" ilk. But it wasn't something around which I was going to plan a new erotic life. On the synth mailing list, we made lots of jokes about spanking synths for a while. A year later, I met someone who asked me to spank her during our lovemaking. Much to my surprise, I found myself enjoying watching the crimson flush spread across her smooth white butt, my hand meeting her rounded flesh, the sound of the smack bouncing sharply off the bedroom wall, her gasps, the intensity of her sexual response geometrically increasing with each slap, the heat, physical, emotional, primal, generated, juices flowing like lava, a feedback loop of pure sexual energy, nova time. It was as if a world of intense sexual possibility, hitherto hidden, or at least unexplored, revealed itself to me that night. Mind you, she had been spanked before, but it was all new to me. I cannot offer any psychological analysis here. But as a man who has always loved sex with women, the incredible moment of a woman's orgasm -- being there with it, in it (Tennessee Williams once pointed out that homosexual men never experience that with a man) -- I was amazed by the all-around intensity my bare-handed paddling generated. Imagine my surprise this late in life. Was this sadism on my part, masochism on hers? Of course not -- sadomasochism implies fetishism, guilt, transference of real sexual feelings to objects, rituals and other stuff not normally connected to sex. Spanking seemed only an addition to what had hitherto been my rather orthodox approach to sex. Cut to my high school reunion a few months ago. I hadn't seen Cheryl since the last one, five years ago. She still looked cute. Single, like me. She asked me to dance, early on. By night's end, we were pretty friendly. We ended up necking at my place. Swatted her bottom lightly. She said harder. I obliged. Things progressed. Nova time again. Later she explained, "I love getting spanked. It makes my whole body just vibrate. I had a lover who used a belt and just the sound of it coming out of his pants and being folded over was completely exciting." So I'm turning into quite the enthusiastic spanker by this time, not that I'm going to Bondage a-Go-Go every week -- I went once years ago and it wasn't the public paddling that shocked me (after a while anyway) -- it was a guy kneeling by the bar with a line of women in front of him, waiting to have their boots licked clean by him, one at a time, resting on his raised knee, their conversations as they stood there, drinks and cigarettes in hand, as banal as anything you might hear in a suburban beauty parlor on any given afternoon. I want to know more about spanking: I guess my pride as a great lover has taken a blow. I asked a gay friend, quite knowledgeable about sexual matters, gay and straight, why women like to get spanked. He said, without hesitation, "The same reason men like to get spanked." This didn't quite resonate with yours truly. Nonetheless, in the search for erotic possibility and truth, a short time later I asked my friend Mary if she wanted to try spanking me. Yes she did, and did so ... but no major heat was generated. No explanation here. I cannot attribute it to cultural conditioning ... or whatever. Perhaps I was just too uptight to enjoy it ... most likely not -- I think getting spanked is just not going to do it for me, ever. Biting, scratching, pinching ... yes. Later, after checking the spanking personal ads on the Web (there are lots), I determined to take a poll about spanking among my women friends. Although a couple of women dismissed it as "creepy," a majority of them admitted that during the act of lovemaking, they enjoy it. Maybe it's just the circles I run in, but I don't think so. A 40-year-old writer at a major daily newspaper confessed, "I was having a fight with my boyfriend. All of a sudden he spanked me, and then took me by force. It was absolutely one of the hottest sexual encounters of my life. It was like my body took over, responding on its own, counter to everything I had believed I would and should like, especially considering my feminist sensibilities." She then counseled me that if I were going to write a balanced piece on spanking that I had to survey my male friends as well. So I asked a few. One friend admitted to getting spanked by a dominatrix in public at a fetish club in San Francisco. He said it didn't really turn him on. Another friend will not speak about something that happened at the same club, nor will he return there. None of my close straight male friends expressed any interest in being the spankee, much preferring to be the spanker. There are men, I am sure, who like to be spanked. This is everything I know today about spanking. Conclusion: By a margin of 3-1, women enjoy getting spanked (by someone they trust) as a part of lovemaking, taking spanking out of the area of kink and putting it squarely into the realm of normal sexual behavior. Men: Are you up to it? Conclusion: Bottoms are well-padded for a good reason. Conclusion: Well-rounded butts appeal to me quite differently these days. Conclusion: Further study is recommended.
Carson Fitzgerald is a freelance writer and composer living in Oakland, Calif. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
