How hard IS it?

(Oh, get your minds out of the gutter.)

A few years ago, I shot a video with Lily Starr called The Secret Life of the Kinky Wife. In it, Robert Wolf plays my new husband who discovers I have a spanking fetish and that I’ve been secretly seeing another man for spanking sessions. He is understandably upset, and I try to make him understand that I’m not having sex with the guy, that it’s purely spanking, and I’d already been seeing him for years and he was so good at it that I didn’t want to give him up. Robert then scoffs, “How hard is it to give a spanking?”

(We’ve all heard this one, haven’t we? In other words, what’s the big deal? You have a lap, a hand and a butt, and the hand hits the butt. It’s not rocket science.) I hasten to protest that it’s harder than it seems, that there’s an art to it, a technique, a lot of nuance, its own language, and trying to teach someone how to do it is like training a puppy. (Yeah, that didn’t go over well.)

In the video, of course, hubby turns out to be a naturally great spanker right out of the gate and we live happily ever after. Ah, fantasy.

In reality, if someone doesn’t have this je ne sais quoi thing we seem to have wired into our DNA, a natural flair and instinct for it, it is damn hard to give a proper spanking. And it seems there are more ways to do it wrong than correctly.

I haven’t been writing about this, but I will now. Recently, I met a man from Alt and we hit it off beautifully in writing. He was smart, funny, we had a lot in common in the vanilla realm, and he seemed to know his way around kink. He said he hadn’t done a whole lot of spanking, but he had done some, and he found it all very intriguing. He was local, and unlike so many men I’ve played with, he could actually host in his own home. So I thought, let’s do this.

Well…

I won’t drag this out with too many details. We played a total of four times. I really liked him as a person, and I kept hoping that he’d improve technique-wise, so I kept giving him more chances. The first time should have been the red flag — he hit so high, I had bruises along the tops of both cheeks, and a substantial mark from where he wrapped me with the belt. I took a picture, showed it to him, and told him which places to avoid.

But something was off each time. He’d still hit too high on occasion, which would snap me out of scene space. He overcompensated and hit way too low. He was uneven; after the third session, I was marked and bruised all down my right leg, while the left side was completely pristine. And then came the fourth session… the one where my skin got broken.

My skin does not break easily. Not even after four days of a party and a lot of spanking. I’ve been playing for over 25 years and I can count the times I’ve had broken skin on one hand and have digits left over. This was it — I’d reached my limit.

He was apologetic. He checked in with me the next day. It’s not that he didn’t care. But for whatever reason, he just wasn’t grasping the fine points. The more we played, the more I realized he really wasn’t familiar with this at all. Besides the technique flaws, the little nuances were missing. He didn’t take me OTK; just put me over the edge of the couch or bed. He didn’t work over layers, just stripped me from the waist down at the outset. All those little things add up. He was a very nice host; always made sure I had water and gave me fresh fruit after each scene to help me through the dip. He made me laugh. He was sweet and complimentary. But the spanking wasn’t going to work, no matter how much I wanted it to. And broken skin is completely unacceptable for me. It took me two weeks to heal.

Last week, I worked up my courage and wrote to him. I said I really liked him, but that the spanking part of our relationship wasn’t working. I said I hoped we could remain friends. I was so concerned, so worried that I’d hurt his feelings. I really didn’t want to. The next day, he wrote back — said he agreed, that it had been “interesting,” but that he “really didn’t get the whole spanko thing.”

Well. Geez. That left me feeling… deflated. I wish he had told me that a whole lot earlier. So what was I, an experiment? A curiosity? Something new and fun to try?

Kids, I’m too old for this shit. At this stage in life, I don’t want to be something new that you try because you think it sounds fun. I want to be able to put myself in your hands and relax, knowing that I am safe and will have an experience that hurts in the right way, not harms. I do not want to have to give an indoctrination. I don’t want to top from the bottom. Granted, there are always little tweaks to be made when you have a new partner. When I played with D a couple of years back, in our first session, he thudded a bit, hitting flat-handed. I suggested that he cup his hand a bit more to the butt cheek so that he’d get that satisfying smack instead of the dull thud. And guess what — no more thudding.

I have been depressed and frustrated over this. It was like trying to force a puzzle piece that doesn’t quite fit, and I invested too much time and too much of my body in it. If I haven’t liked him so much, the first scene would have been our last. But… lesson learned. From now on, I will have radar up strongly. Unless someone identifies as a spanko and has a fair amount of experience, I will not meet with them. Because there is no faking this. It’s either there or it isn’t.

Fortunately, my friend Chris is driving down from Oregon to see me again; we have a date on January 3. It will be so lovely, being able to hand myself over to him, close my eyes and blissfully absorb, knowing each and every strike will be spot on, all will be precise and even, and I will hurt so good in all the right places. I need this so, so much. Especially since it doesn’t seem like parties are ever going to be a reality for me anymore. Covid is exploding once again, all over the place, and breakthrough cases are happening with people who took the vaccines. Shadow Lodge will be in February, but I can already see that it won’t happen for us. It doesn’t matter that we are vaxxed and boostered; John still feels it’s irresponsible and risky to gather in large indoor crowds, to travel. And I’m not going without him. So, my scene life has ground to a halt. And thanks to the FUCKING ANTI-VAXXERS, indefinitely. Yes, I’m using all caps. I detest these selfish, ignorant, awful people. (No, I’m not talking about the small percentage who have allergies or other medical reasons to not be vaxxed, so don’t jump on me.) Therefore, finding a local and available play partner is still my Holy Grail.

So, yeah. Next time someone says, “How hard is it to give a spanking?” you can answer, not hard at all. But to give a proper spanking, a good spanking, a satisfying, safe and fulfilling spanking? That’s a whole different story.

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