Why are we so shy?

We spankos are very shy people.   No - really, really shy.

According to the survey, 59% of us have told no one but our partner of our interest, and a staggering 15% have never told anyone at all.   The percentages are slightly higher for the over-50 age group:  19% have never once revealed their interest in spankings.   Only 3% of respondents state that it is not a secret at all.

Over 20% of spankos, of all ages groups, have never been in a spanking relationship ever.

That suggests to me that we have a deep seated need to keep our interest very personal.

The first clue as to why that should be so comes from the question "As a spanko, how do you think Vanillas view us?"    Among the choices, some significant ones were:

      Spankos are perverts                             42%
      Spankos need medical treatment     18%
      Spankos are a danger to children     14%

Well, that might explain why nearly 20% of us are petrified of the reaction we would get if we told anyone that we are a spanko.

Not many vanillas have taken our survey (not that surprising, really) but let us look at the 15 responses we got when they were asked the identical question"

     Spankos are perverts                           0%
     Spankos need medical attentions     0%
     Spankos are a danger to children    0%

Not enough responses to be statistically significant, but there does seem to be a trend emerging.    Particularly when one considers the ever widening acceptance of all things spanking in main stream media.   In general, vanillas look on us as pretty ordinary people who should not be censured for activity between consenting adults.   There will be exceptions, of course - just look at how much hostility homosexuals get at the hands of that declining group of bigots - the homophobic and the repressed.

Back to our spanking secret.   I have a hypothesis, but no hard data to back it up - as yet.    About 70% of us acquired our taste at a very early age:  under the age of 9 according to 45% of survey respondents.    And as young children, we really had to keep such an odd trait very secret indeed:  enjoying punishment seemed so bizarre that admitting it was going to mean an automatic trip to some sort of asylum or another.   By the time we reached puberty, keeping it a secret was totally ingrained.  It had become one of our defining characteristics.

Which is why for some of us, it will be a secret that will last an entire lifetime.