Styles of Spanking

by Ms. Margaret Davis

It’s essential to make the effort to carefully interview each person who must lie across a lap or submit to a spanking. There are certain common threads which help with communication. The focus of listening to each player, top or bottom, is to learn what will bring the most amount of pleasure to each partner.

When I started asking very direct questions as to where spankers like the scene to go I got a variety of responses. I was able to put them into seven basic categories. It’s risky to assign people into categories but for now let’s just say it’s a good beginning.

Playful Spanking

Playful spankings occur with laughing and/or light topics of conversation. Often it includes baby talk but not always. This is the style most often seen at open parties because the mood is light and it invites others to take part, sometimes using “spanking games.” In playful situations the submissive often converts to a loving “brat,” which is often misunderstood as a masochist. Whether the brat instigates his/her own treatment or has lovingly been “set up” by the dominant, the lively submissive adds a certain amount of energy to the setting.

Unfortunately, since this is the style the BDSM dungeon scene people see the most, they falsely assume that spankers are weak beginners at dominance and submission. The BDSM scene has a long history of not understanding what we are really about but assuring the world they know how to spank. For me personally, as soon as I hear Master, Mistress, slave, and see black leather I know we’re not talking about my kind of spanking. Or when the focus becomes something overly sexual or tremendously painful, then I know this BDSM person hasn’t a clue as to how important the mental and emotional aspects are. The greater part of a good spanking takes place in your head, but you arrive there only with a good partner.

Discipline Spanking

Discipline spankings, my personal favorite, can get into some very serious scenes and are often misinterpreted by those who don’t have that calling. These encounters can get personal and can be based on offenses that the receiver feels the need to have forgiven. It is often referred to as a “purification” that one may have experienced in childhood.

Serious discipline spankings can be so real that it is rare and awkward for them to occur in an open or public setting. The striking is very repetitive and can include some serious pain, although the pain itself is not the focus of the scene. Naturally, this is a scene one does not indulge in without mutual consent from the other partner. While the striking with a hand, hairbrush or paddle may be intense, the atmosphere is one of control and loving concern. The words seem to come straight from a parent’s lips.

“You know what’s going to happen and you know why. We have talked about this before, and you chose not to follow my instructions. Now, bring me the hairbrush and get over my knee.”

The room is quiet and the ritual begins. The pants are lowered, the naughty one is bent over and the spanking commences, stroke after stroke on the raised bottom. Should there be any signs of resistance, the one in charge should have a number of solutions readily available so that there is no misunderstanding that this spanking will happen according to plan.

In all honesty, I have seen very few dominants who know how to do a meaningful, loving, and serious spanking. I’m not talking about pain. Pain is not as big a part of the punishment as people think. A serious spanking scene — one that makes a submissive feel humble and forgiven — takes carefully crafted mental and verbal skills that pierce their way into the heart and mind of the one who is over your lap.

Even during a serious discipline spanking I make sure there is some sort of safe word or signal. However, I have found that when you use reason and logic during the scene as to why this spanking must happen in the most strict fashion possible, submissives will take as much pain as they can because they have been lovingly convinced that it is for their own good and in their best interests.

Rarely do I ever end a discipline spanking without some kind of nurturing — some sort of reassurance that this was done out of love. When I do not cuddle at the end, it is usually because they are being sent to bed early, tucked in and lights out.

Maintenance Spanking

Maintenance spankings can be “just because.” The dominant knows that the submissive is due and doles it out accordingly. Or maybe the dominant is just in the mood to please their own calling. It’s been said that many a submissive willingly comes to the dominant and simply asks for a spanking because they know they need it.

Sensual Spanking

Sensual spankings tend to be an experience of exciting the senses; the feeling of a warm lap beneath you and the embarrassment of having your bottom high in the air. This is an experience that focuses on touch, such as firm hands unfastening your clothes and putting you in place over pillows, over a couch, or over a knee. You feel your skin being soothed with a hand then smacked a few times. The spanking itself is interspersed with other types of touches. Fingernails and/or fingertips gently scratching along the backs of your thighs and calves; a warm hand kneading your back; those fingertips or nails again, this time scratching the cheeks of your bottom; all these can add to the sensuality of the experience. There is a whole collection of implements that make a sensuous spanking like a gentle massage.

A word of caution, however, is that just because a spankee relaxes and submits to this relaxing experience, it does not mean that they necessarily are inviting you to touch private areas. Gentle slaps and soft touches may be all they want and to go further without checking could ruin your chances of playing together again.

Erotic Spanking

Erotic spankings have more touching and stroking in between slaps of a less rhythmic cadence. Private areas are readily touched and any position is possible. If both parties are into spanking the whole process can lead to outrageous sexual satisfaction. The difference between this and a sensual spanking is that the sensations an erotic spanking focuses on are more sexual in nature, while a sensual spanking is about the sensations on the skin.

Percussion Spanking

Percussion spanking has more to do with how the top uses a submissive’s bottom like a set of drums or musical instrument. There’s a certain beat or a variety of rhythms. Like all styles make sure both players enjoy this sort of scene. It’s not for everybody and to players who prefer something more traditional this can be distracting since it objectifies a person’s derrière. Some people like the bongo-drum style but for other spankos in the room who are playing out more serious scenes the noise of a percussion scene is annoying. Men think it’s cute. It’s not.

No delay- Spank away

This kind of spanking scene skips over rituals, chastising and conversations to mentally prepare either player. Some bottoms don’t need or want all the build up and just want to get down to the business of being spanked, Whether they like it hard or more soft is what remains to be discussed. I don’t advise this for a new player. (Not a real popular approach)

Finally, I must add that there is nothing in this article that is absolute or written in stone. I offered a few categories for starting points but any combination is possible.