Generally (although
not universally), "coming out" is considered a good thing to do.
"Coming out" implies healthy self-acceptance and a willingness
to be honest with others. Remaining "in the closet," on the other
hand, means isolation, secret shame, and repression. Homosexuals, of course,
were the first to speak of "coming out." Now the phrase is used
freely by anyone who secretly indulges in any activity -- from chocolate
eating to soap opera watching -- that may be perceived to be even vaguely
disapproved of by others.
Somewhere between the serious life-altering decision involved in a homosexual's "coming out" and the joke of admitting to a harmless although perhaps embarrassing habit is where *spankophiles* find themselves. Spankophiles, or "spankos" as they are known to each other, are adult males and females who are interested in and/or practice spanking among themselves -- either administering or receiving, or both. All serious spankos will hasten to add that to the definition that they condone the practice for consenting adults only. Most either take no position on the question of spanking children, or they actively disapprove and refuse to practice it themselves. Many spankos dislike applying the judgmental term "perversion" to spanking and shun the clinical-sounding "fetish." Rather, they refer to their interest as just that -- an "interest" or perhaps a "kink" or "diversion or even "play."
People are spankos for as many different reasons -- and practice spanking
in as many different ways -- almost as there are spankos themselves. Those
are very individual issues and could be the subjects of a several other
articles. One thing a number of spankos will point out, however, is that
the practice of spanking between consenting healthy adults carries no risk
of disease or permanent harm and is not known to be anywhere explicitly
illegal. Yet, very few spankos are willing to come out to anyone but each
other -- and then usually only in a carefully controlled and supportive
environment.
If we think about it, we realize that almost every one of us knows at least
one "out" homosexual, but very few of us know an "out"
spanko. (Some of the homosexuals we know, of course, also might be spankos,
but we can be sure they will be far less willing to discuss that aspect
of their lives than they are their sexual orientation.) On the other hand,
if we extrapolate from some of the numbers I will offer below, it is not
unlikely that a great many of us know -- but don't know we know -- at least
one closet spanko.
Who, then, are the spankos? Where are the spankos? How do they find each
other? And why don't they come out of the closet?
The first question is easy to answer. Spankos are us. They are female and
male, straight and gay. they live in the U. S., Canada, Europe, and many
other places. (I'll admit that I've met relatively few spankos from the
Eastern countries but have no way of knowing if that lack of representation
is due to linguistic, cultural, or some other factors.) Spankos are sales
persons, homemakers, musicians, college and graduate school students, health
care professionals, computer systems administrators, college professors,
actors, and business executives. When they are at home, they cook, do laundry,
wash the dog, drive kids to the movies, garden, and plan family vacations.
As I said, if we know any spankos, we probably don't know that we know them.
Even spankos themselves are unlikely to be aware of it if they know other
spankos. There's no secret handshake.
Where and how, then, do spankos find other spankos? In the old days -- that
is, just a few short pre-Internet years ago -- it could be a pretty lonely
business being a spanko. The more adventurous and more urban availed themselves
of adult bookstores where spanking literature and films might be found scattered
among sexual materials, and perhaps they found obscure publications through
which they could find each other in personal ads. For many years, some fortunate
spankos indeed were able to lead quite active spanking lives through these
means. Others, more geographically isolated, depended upon finding the rare
depiction of spanking in mainstream literature and film and chance encounters
with other like-minded individuals.
In the last few years, however, more and more spankos have been able to
freely -- although most often anonymously -- interact with each other electronically.
Anyone who believes that spanking is some obscure fetish occurring in only
the rare individual quickly would be disabused of that notion after taking
a short trip down the information superhighway. Both subscribers to commercial
online services and users of the public Internet have access to a world
of spanking-related materials, activities, and contact. Subscribers to commercial
services, such as CompuServe and America On-Line, can read and post to Usenet
newsgroups (that is, special interest electronic bulletin boards) and join
chat "rooms" in which subscribers with common interests gather.
Users of the public Internet also can read the newsgroups (although it is
far more difficult to do so, and the groups are subject to possible censorship),
join IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channels, and access World Wide Web pages
devoted to spanking. Even some spanko users of local community networks
have been known to seek each other out discreetly and converse on private
channels.
The few available numbers are revealing: the Usenet newsgroup "alt.sex.spanking"
-- fondly known as "a.s.s." (which emerged from the pre-existing
"alt.sex.bondage" about two years ago) often contains more than
fifty postings per day -- fiction, poetry, reminiscences, and general discussion.
And a less voluminous group known as "alt.personals.spanking"
also exists. One spanking Web site reports over 18,000 "hits"
(instances of access) per month. And several IRC spanking-related channels
host revolving casts of anywhere from 10 to 35 or more different users at
virtually any time of the day or night.
More eloquent and reliable than these random figures, however, are the words
of those spankos who for the first time have found each other online. Ever
more widely accessible personal computing technology and most importantly
the anonymity it allows are making it possible for more and more people
with an interest in spanking to learn more about it -- and about themselves.
All the serious spankos who associate online have in common a profound and
frequently-expressed thankfulness and relief that they have found each other.
Many of them in their pre-electronic days shared a fear that they were afflicted
with some sort of perverted desire in which they were totally alone. Others
who may have known better than that still lacked any way of giving voice
to their interest, much less practicing it with fellow spankos. Online contact,
even if it consists of no more than just reading the Usenet group, provides
a much-welcome sense of support that ordinarily is lacking in the typical
spanko's life. Very few spankos, even those who are quite open on the 'net,
would ever dream of "coming out" to RL ("real-life")
people in their non-cyber lives.
Why?
Admittedly, it may be argued that spanking is a private sexual activity
that would not be in good taste to discuss with other than one's bed-partner.
that spanking is a sexual activity is often but not 100% true. Even if it
were, propriety never has demanded that all sexual proclivities be hidden.
For example, some men always quite frankly and publicly have expressed their
preference for big breasts. And in some circles, it is not considered offensive
to openly mention oral sex. In fact, it even has been not so discreetly
depicted on daytime soaps. Another example is that among some late teens
and twenty-somethings, it recently has become fashionable to announce participation
in bondage and dominance/submission activities.
But to claim spankophilia -- never. It simply is not done.
One reason undoubtedly is the inevitable confusion of adult consensual spanking
with the forced spanking of children, and thus with the taboo of child abuse.
It never will be explained to some critics' satisfaction that adult spanking
has absolutely no connection with cruelty to children. That confusion is
compounded by the fact that some spankos trace their current interest to
childhood spankings they received, and thus adult spanking is stigmatized
as a perverted consequence of child abuse. Other spankos, however, never
were spanked until well into adulthood, so the specter of child abuse does
not even come into play. Few spankos with whom I have come in contact approve
of the spanking of children. In fact, with a twinkle in their eyes, some
maintain, "Spanking is too good for kids!" Yet the association
of the childish punishment with the adult diversion discourages many spankos
from frankly discussing their interest.
A related reason for the inhibition of many spankos is the abhorrence the
better part of our society rightfully feels toward the battering of women.
Here the association is just too close for comfort for many. Even if one
accepts the premise of adult spanking by consent, it may yet be asked how
it is different from battering -- especially since the most obvious and
popular gender mix of spanko activity is "M/F," or adult male
spanking adult female. And that M/F activity usually is depicted as a husband
spanking his wife, boyfriend his girlfriend, boss his secretary, policeman
a female speeder, etc. -- the possibilities are endless, but they have in
common a dominant (at least temporarily) male spanker humiliating and hurting
a subservient female spankee. That's a tough one to explain -- really tough.
It gets even tougher if we add to that understandable concern for the physical
well-being of women the contemporary feminist contention that any depiction
of the even fantasized abuse of women leads to actual abuse. One can understand
easily why a closet spanko would be unwilling to "come out" and
step into that landmine -- especially, for example, if the spanko is, say,
a female spankee who also happens to be an accomplished professional person
in real life. Worse even for a male spanker to admit that he delights in
having bare female buttocks draped across his knees awaiting the punishment
he is very willing to deliver.
The implicit charge spankos fear facing is that spanking is nothing but
part and parcel of domestic violence and the general denigration of women.
Answering that charge involves untangling many fine threads of mistaken
assumptions.
First, while M/F spanking constitutes the most obvious of spanking incidents
either real or fictional, adult spanking occurs in all possible gender combinations.
In fact, some spankos of both sexes are proud "switches," meaning
that they are just as happy to find themselves in either the spanker or
spankee position. Others, both male and female, are confirmed spankers or
confirmed spankees. (And possibly worst off of all spankos as far as "coming
out" is concerned are the fewer but not insignificant number of heterosexual
male spankos who identify themselves at least some of the time as spankees.
Even thinking about admitting that proclivity in this essentially macho
culture is impossible for them.) Real spankos cheerfully tolerate this internal
diversity in their ranks, but that diversity is not even apparent let alone
appreciated by non-spankos.
Second, (although this cannot be accurately measured) it probably is true
that at least the slight majority of spanking activity is of the M/F variety.
This is the point at which it becomes vital to understand the spanko tenet
of consent. Adult spanking by consent -- let's go ahead and call it M/F
spanking, for the sake of argument -- is different from battering in that
the spankee has explicitly consented or even asked to be spanked. It seems
a simple concept, but spankos find themselves explaining it over and over
again to newbies and the curious who find it difficult to believe that,
as a very respected IRC male spanker recently said to me, "if a woman
decides to withdraw her consent, even while over my knees mid-paddling,
she sits straight up forthwith -- no questions asked." Of course, finding
a spanking partner one can trust to that degree is one of the more difficult
parts of actually practicing spanking. Many spankos believe the search to
be well worth the time and trouble because the trust that must exist between
a spanker and spankee necessarily exceeds that ordinarily found between
more conventional partners. That this scenario bears no resemblance to female
battering should not be a difficult concept to grasp.
The most complex charge leveled at the practice of adult spanking comes
from contemporary feminists who claim that women spankees only think that
they are consenting because they have been conditioned by a sexist male-dominated
society to participate in their own abuse. When this point is raised among
spankos, many simply shrug and adopt a "if-you-have-to-ask-you-can't-afford-it"
attitude. Others get angry, especially highly-educated accomplished and
successful female spankees who resent being told that they really are not
aware of what they are thinking and doing. One twenty-something male spanker
("occasional switch"), wise beyond his years, perhaps put the
question in the best perspective I yet have heard it expressed: "Undoubtedly
. . . women are conditioned by culture to be more submissive than men. That
doesn't mean that playing out those scenarios in a consenting fantasy is
sexist. [Rather] it means [we're] making use of sexist patterns in culture
to play with them, transform them, change them." He went on to say
that it was unfair of feminist critics to attempt to oppress sexual desires,
either male or female, "in favor of vague political agendas."
For my own part, I will say that the most sincere, committed feminists I
know are spankos, both female and male. A case in point is a gentleman from
across the Atlantic who is one of the most artful and sought-after spankers
on IRC. He had never heard of Shannon Faulkner, whom we all had been discussing
one morning. When I explained the Citadel case to him, he was scandalized,
exclaiming that he wasn't aware that we in the U. S. still allowed such
blatant gender discrimination to exist. I couldn't find male support like
that for Shannon Faulkner in my own family (husband excepted) or workplace.
No. Rather, I found it in a man in front of whom women line up to play out
cyber fantasies of pain and humiliation. Is there something wrong with this
picture? Maybe nothing is wrong with the picture, but it is, at the very
least, a difficult paradox to unravel. And, as I said, a great many spankos
simply don't care to try.
After all, some of them, especially if they've successfully found spanking
friends and partners, are just having too much damn fun to bother. To tell
the truth, much humor frequently is inherent in typical spanking scenarios,
and that aspect of the situation accounts for that good cheer and laughter
one finds among either cyber or real life gatherings of spankos. Not all
spanking relationships and encounters are upbeat, but many of them often
are, and some, in fact, occasionally tend toward the downright riotous.
Yet, non-spankos who probably don't think that spanking should be occurring
in the first place are highly unlikely to understand that the activity can
be plenty of fun.
And therein likes another paradox that helps us understand why many spankos
simply never are going to "come out." How ya gonna explain it?
A man who likes big-breasted women doesn't have to *explain* that preference
-- even though in reality it might be infantile and shallow -- because it's
thought to be "normal." On the other hand, spankos, if they were
to "come out," would be called upon to explain why they *like*
-- even have a good deal of fun -- giving or receiving sometimes extreme
pain and humiliation, especially if their partners are people they profess
to love. Yeah. Just imagine that conversation around the water cooler or
at the next family gathering. Surely homosexuality must be far easier to
explain and get other people to accept than is spankophilia.
After all, I can't even sign my real name to this article. Yes, I am a spanko
-- a female spankee, to be precise, and I think I've known since adolescence
what I am. No, I wasn't spanked as a child -- no more than half-heartedly
swatted. My husband and I were married in the 1980s, but I only came out
to him within the last year, and only after finding that all-important support
via the Internet. He graciously has agreed to participate in my diversion,
and I trust him with the, as he puts it, "timing, duration, and severity"
of my spankings. Would he identify himself as a spanko? Probably not --
yet -- but he offers no objection to the "spanking lifestyle."
And believe me, I know how fortunate I am. Many married spankos find little
support from their spouses, and some spanking partners of my Internet acquaintance
are separated by thousands of miles. Am I happy? Wildly! In fact, I've never
had more fun in my life. Am I going to "come out"? No, absolutely
not.
