Another new tale.  This one An Abuse of Power is based on a real life account told to me by a lady correspondent:  so it is as true to life as I can make it. 

Thoughts on thoughts

Although it is not necessary for a science fiction writer to be an astronaut, nor a western author to be able to ride horses and fire a six shooter, it pretty much goes with the turf that a writer of spanking fiction has some affinity with the practice.

This is probably true of all writers who dabble in erotica of one kind or another - if the subject matter does not turn you on, your stories will be groan-worthy among those who are turned on by it.

Which leads to a very tempting trap for the writer of spanking fiction:  an unhealthy desire to explain what, exactly, the protagonists are getting out of the experience.

Very few readers of spanking fiction are without spanko urges of their own.   So the vast majority already know exactly what the protagonists are getting out of the experience, and any explanation is open to being less than satisfactory.   On the one hand, it is not necessary, on the other it may not right true, and on the third one, it requires you to tell the reader what people are thinking.

That third one is the real killer.    If you have to use a sentence like "She was confused by the emotions running through her mind" - you have blow it.    It is modern school, but becoming ever more widely accepted - you don't tell the reader what a person thinks or feels:  you describe what happens so that the reader can decide for themselves.

I have lifted this from Literactor to show the point.   Don't write:  "Adam knew Gwyn liked him."  For although that might set out the stall, consider how much better the stall is set out with words like """Between classes, Gwen was always leaning on his locker when he'd go to open it. She'd roll her eyes and shove off with one foot, leaving a black-heel mark on the painted metal, but she also left the smell of her perfume. The combination lock would still be warm from her ass. And the next break, Gwen would be leaned there, again."

Back to spanko fiction.   A ploy used by more than one author is to have an adult getting a spanking for the first time and - much to his/her surprise thoroughly enjoys the experience.   Assuming we have a non-spanko reader, we can now spend several pages explaining how this paradox has arisen.   Right inside the spankee's head, to relate history, current emotion and raging sex drive in as much detail as it takes to get a non-spanko to understand why something as unpleasant as pain is causing our hero/heroine such unbridled lust.

That is assuming we have a non-spanko reader.    Which is not very likely.    And if it should happen, we have deserted out prime audience of fellow spankos to explore something they already have explored to the fullest extent.

In sum, we spanking authors should not get inside the heads of our creations too often:  and when we do, it should not be to explain why spankos like spankings.

Surveys need participants

How do you get someone who is vanilla to take part in a spanking survey?

That is not a rhetorical question, put a practical problem for the people conducting the LSF spanking survey.  If you have not yet taken part, there is a link to it over on the links list.

One of the very early indicators is that spankos are extremely secretive about their predilection - and when asked what spankos think vanillas think about spankos, the most common combination (so far) is that we think vanillas look on spankos as perverts who are a danger to children.  No wonder we are secretive if revealing what we are is likely to get us run out of town on a rail.

But.   An important but.   But what do vanillas really think about spankos?   And the answer is: we have no idea.

Not one person taking the survey has, of now, has completed the vanilla section of the survey.

So, dear reader, how do we get vanillas to participate?    Perhaps you could lean on a vanilla friend to take part?    Or you could  Send me an email  (And should you be a spammer, this is a zombie email account).   Or perhaps leave a comment.

Anyway, any ideas will be very gratefully received.

Thanks

Another new tale in the Free section.   All Around the House demonstrates how futile it is to try to avoid the vengeful retribution that is coming your way.   A little lighter hearted than some of my previous postings, but still quite effective.     Enjoy.

Spanking Survey

A mainly for-fun survey into what makes a Spanko tick is being run by my good buddies at LSF - the Library of Spanking Fiction.    It is totally anonymous.   No - honest - absolutely totally anonymous.

If you want to participate, here is the link

And I shall post survey statistics here from time to time, in case you would like to know what they reveal.

Another free story has been added to the Free Stories stock - but this time, one that is special:  at least to me.

The Gleam in Her Eye combines futuristic elements with erotic ones with spanking.   A heady mix.   And it is a shortened version of the first chapter of a novel that is currently work in progress.    I thought you might like to get a sneak preview:  and any comments you would like to share could be very useful for me.

Laying on the agony

If reading that a spankee has received a dozen slaps is titillating, then getting two dozen must be twice as titillating, right?

That is a trap a fair number of new-comers to writing spanking fiction fall into.  And it leads to several potential problems.

The first, and possibly most significant, is the believability of the set up.  Let us suppose you, as an author, have decided that petite six-former Carol Higgins is going to get twelve of the best for smoking (poor set up, but passable), on the bare (believability dropping) and gets six extra for squirming too much (index way down) and goes home to get another 18 from mom (oh dear) and then finally another 18 when dad gets home... Well, the count was achieved but in such an unconvincing manner, most readers might have moved on before learning how really, really painful the last half dozen were.

But suppose a really plausible set up was made in which someone gets more and more spanks, slaps, cane strokes - whatever?   The sheer volume can overwhelm the tale - and although it is supposed to be fantasy, it is still supposed to be rooted in reality.

There is, elsewhere, the law of diminishing returns.   And in spank fiction, that law may be recast as telling us that once the reader's saturation point has been reached, anything extra now diminishes from reading any more.   In real life, 5 from a paddle is bad, and 10 is about as much as a buttock can readily withstand.

Any spanking story that goes beyond 10 of a paddle is moving from real life discipline into an endurance test of just how much some people can absorb.   Not that endurance tests should never be the subject matter of spanking fiction, just that the set up should be one in which such an endurance test is feasible to the reader and within the motivations of both the giver and taker of what, in any other circumstances, would be abuse for abuse's sake.

Another new free tale has been added to the Free Stories page.   This time I Remember Her Well examines a dark relationship in which a young lady is engrossed by the fact that her lover once received a birching when serving as a cadet at a military training establishment.  He wants no more to do with it, but she has other ideas.

More on motivation

Let us talk some more about the motivation of the spankee.

It happens in real life as well as in fiction that a young lady is told to touch her toes by a man holding a cane,   And she does does, knowing full well some time in the near future that cane is going to be smacking against her bottom.


The act of her touching her toes stretches the credulity of the vanilla to breaking point.   How could anyone willingly let themselves get hit like that?

The first explanation is the one that troubles the vanilla mind the most:  she presents her bottom for a beating simply because she is going to enjoy it.   For her, pain is a source of pleasure.    To the vanilla, pain is bad, not having pain is good, and making pain into something good is downright perverse.   If not, in fact, downright perverted.   Therefore, the vanilla will argue, such a woman must have a broken psychology.  

Indeed, until quite recently, the spankee would have tended to agree with that point of view.   Enjoying getting your bottom slapped was both shameful as well as being impossible to understand.    Just about every spanko around the globe spends a good deal of time convinced that each is the only human with such tendencies, and very, very determined not to let anyone else know about it.   It is reported on one of the forums that a couple were wed for more than 10 years before they each found out that the other was a spanko.  Quite ironic really just how far some people can go to hide the truth from friends and family.

The second set of explanations revolve around different forms of coercion:  she does not want to be caned, but is submitting because of blackmail, false sense of duty, because he has brain washed her and so on.   If she is not a willing victim, then some sort of force must be being applied against her.   Ergo - if she is not demented, then her tormentor is.   Either way, this caning should not happen.

But in adult relationships, all parties take part willingly.   There simply is no room for abuse in an adult relationship.   Not that abuse never takes place:  when it does, it is because of the lack of an adult relationship, not because there is one.

In short, the spanker and the spankee will both gain pleasure from the pain of a spanking.   The spankee as a direct consequence of a stinging bottom, the spanker as an echo of those stings.

And those of us who have been there need no better motivation.

Motivation - 2

In the real life spanking of adults, the word "no" rules.   The spankee explicitly or implicitly gives the spanker permission to proceed:  to the extent of sometimes being known as "topping from the bottom".    And if, for whatever reason, the spankee decides enough is enough, that is usually sufficient to bring matters to an immediate close.

But in fiction, spankees allow themselves to be coerced into the most fearsome beatings with hardly a protest:  and never one that amounts to a flat "no".   In fiction, victims are always willing victims no matter how unlikely their real life counter-part may be.

Authors tend to use three plot ploys to ensure that the spanking promised to the reader actually takes place:  the spankee accepts for whatever reason that a spanking is called for, some outside pressure makes refusal impossible, or the spankee really enjoys the sting.   And to stir things up, sometimes all three are present in different mixes.

Some authors (often new to the trade) will spend a lot of page space explaining why the spankee is consenting to be whopped.    And often, this is an area where the more analysis that takes place has the effect of reducing the reader's interest in the character.   A reluctant spankee may spend a page or two coming to terms with the emotional, physical and psychological impact of what is about to happen.   The reader accepts that convention demands that once a spankee has been told to assume the position, the spankee will promptly comply.   This is not the time for detailed reflection of why spankees willingly go to their fate.   At list in fiction they always do.

There are times to explore the relationship between the two parties:  but that can take place in the set up, or in the aftermath.   All resistance from an unwilling spankee can, perhaps, be dealt with even before the "crime" is revealed.    And for those who have spanking rituals as part of their foreplay, the whys and wherefores may be part of the post coital relaxation.

For most readers do not really care about the motivation of the spankee unless the set up is so unbelievable that it beggars belief.   You might have come across something of the sort:  a school rebellion results in the headmistress accepting a caning from the head prefect.   The author is absorbed with a role-reversal disciplinary punishment, and it all works ,,, because ,,, because..    The motivation may very well require a suspension of disbelief larger than that required for the set up itself.

The reader wants the victim to find a quick excuse to assume the position:  authors need to recognize that when they ponder why this particular spankee would accept a spanking from that particular spanker.