(I’ve split this off to a new thread)

Ariel knows more spanking fans than me, but my impression is also that a lot of spanking fans consider bondage to be something completely different, and certainly don’t like to mix the spanking with bondage. Some bondage fans also aren’t into pain in any form at all, so find spanking a turn-off especially when mixed with bondage, but my impression is also that a lot of people who consider themselves into BDSM build spanking/punishment into things they do, whereas a lot of people who consider themselves into spanking are ONLY into spanking.

I’ve never quite understood why.

I’ve recently formed the conjecture that it may be to do with overtly sexual elements in the fantasies.

I don’t know about anyone else, but my BDSM fantasies always have a sexual element, and no harms comes to the fantasy from expressing that sexual element. For me, dom/sub interaction definitely does mean that the sub is going to get fucked at some point, even if it happens discreetly off-screen in photos or videos. Similarly, if the sub is tied up, at some point she is going to get tied up and fucked. Even if we don’t see it, the implication is definitely there in the fantasy right from the off. For me, seeing hints of that through the fantasy, or through the roleplay or scene when doing it in real life, definitely enhance things. The sexual element may be subtle, but it is expressed.

By contrast, I conjecture, a lot of spanking fantasies seem to non-sexual. If sex is going to happen, it is more likely to be after the scene and the roleplay has terminated. Any sexuality during the scene or photoset or video is actually to be avoided as “ruining” it. Any sexual element is to be repressed to the point of non-existence for the duration of the scene. The participants may well have sex afterwards, but it is a separate event from the scene.

That may be partly why schoolgirl fantasies seem to be the single biggest area for spanking, but which I find very uncomfortable for my own BDSM fantasies: because my BDSM fantasies, and scenes, and photosets and videos which I shoot, always have that constant sexual undertone, and it is inappropriate to the schoolgirl stuff because it carries the association with underage sex even though all parties are clearly adults.

Whereas if everyone involved in the schoolgirl scene is STRICTLY roleplaying as vanilla with no sexual element at all to be expressed during the scene, this concern would not arise. It is fine to have sex afterwards with someone who was PLAYING a schoolgirl for the duration of the scene, because there’s no sexual element while people are in role, and hence no question of fantasies about underage sex.

I know of some spanking fans who roleplay that the female bottom is actually a boy, rather than a girl, for some fantasies.

Now as I’m heterosexual, any such gender swap roleplaying isn’t of interest to me unless the “boy” in the scene is revealed to be a woman in time for the sexual part of the fantasy to happen, and usually right at the start (as in she’s revealed as having been impersonating a man, and the fantasy scene is her comeuppance for that).

But I can see that if the spanking part of the fantasy is divorced from the sexual part of the fantasy, it wouldn’t make so much difference what sex the spankee was. I conjecture that again since any sexual element would only come in once both people are out of role, it doesn’t matter as much.

For me, enacting scenes where there’s no hint or possibility of sex whilst “in the roles” of the people you are playing in the scene is rather dull. For a lot of spanking fans, it seems to be an essential part of the fantasy and to be constructed that way on purpose.

Very interesting… anyone else have any thoughts?

Cheers, Hywel.