The generally accepted definition of erotic spanking is: Spanking for sexual gratification, using the hand or a variety of implements. The art of spanking has been practiced for centuries The ancient classic Kama Sutra lovingly described the sounds of slaps. My courageously outspoken pal Alex Zola, The Zola System, has acknowledged that he spent his thirties as a provider of kink for the women who love it--and that his sex life for the past year has been one spanking girl and "some sloppy Wedding sex."
My post on The Spanking Man received a lot of attention--most positive, but some from outraged women. One attacked me on Alex's Facebook page (where he promoted the blog) as a pornographer. She hadn't read the piece and objected to the photo image of a lovely female ass, a male hand poised above it. "His thumb is clearly aimed for her anus!" she wrote. She refused to read the piece where she would have learned that the thumb had no such trajectory. No surprise. Most people clamoring for censorship don't read what they castigate and would outlaw. But this story has a happy ending. James, a male reader rushed to my defense and told her she needed a good spanking. She dis-friended Alex. Isn't it always the most repressed who are also the most perverted?
Alex, who confides he prefers a firm butt because the sounds of the slaps echo, wants women to know that he is a romantic, albeit a kinky romantic. He pays for dinner, buys flowers, and some years ago was in the habit of leaving breakfast--a tea bag in a coffee cup and a muffin--with flowers outside a girlfriend's apartment door. ("We had a good sex life, a normal sex life with a little spanking and some fisting mixed in.")
Once again, I question Alex.
SUSAN: I defined you as a "kinky romantic" in one of our interviews. After The Spanking Man post, some women wrote and asked me, "Where's the romance in spanking?' So, Alex, that's my first question to you: Where is the romance in spanking?
ALEX: It's not quite serenading her beneath the window with a red rose in hand. Although it appears to be violent, spanking has nothing to do with violence. As anyone who has ever been mugged in New York City knows, violence is short, terrifying and paralyzing in equal measures. Spanking is a power exchange. In dating and mating, women have all the power. They have so much that they can afford to give a little away now and then.
SUSAN: A woman who wants to be spanked is handing over some power to you--correct?
ALEX: Yes. There's something romantic about giving a woman what she desires. Bringing her fantasy to life is utterly romantic.
SUSAN: Okay, there's some truth--and charm--in that. But why are American women fantasizing domination now?
ALEX: Americans firmly believe in the American dream and have embraced the Wollstonecraft version of feminism. Women are making greater strides in the workplace as men are becoming both equal partners and lesser earners. Spanking and other BDSM games may be a manifestation of the need for male/female role play.
SUSAN: That reminds me of a discussion we had about non-penetrative sex orgies. I was invited to one (and declined). Sex without any form of penetration seems like a sensible thing for strangers to do in terms of cutting down disease risks. But it doesn't appeal to me. [Orgies don't appeal to me; I'm such a one-on-one-at-a-time woman.] Women crave penetration--whether we come that way or not--and men want to penetrate--because they always come that way. Penetration speaks to a deep need in both sexes. Let's not forget that lesbians popularized dildos and vibrators. Do you think spanking is a viable way for a woman to feel like she's with a real man--when she chooses not to have intercourse for one reason or another?
ALEX: I prefer not to think of spanking as the whole act--at least not going in. When she says "I'd like to be spanked," I'm thinking: kinky foreplay.
SUSAN: But spanking was the whole game with the woman we've been talking about in these interviews--and with other women.
ALEX: Yes, that wasn't my idea. But let me make one thing clear: Most of the women I've spanked have wanted a few slaps or maybe five minutes, not two hours. She was an anomaly.
SUSAN: You generally spank women in their twenties to maybe 40--which is consistent with the culture where that seems to be the age group asking for the whip hand. Do you think that women under 40 want to be spanked more than older women do or did--or they're just more willing to ask for it?
ALEX: They might be more willing to ask for it. There's always been an interest in BDSM.
SUSAN: Bettie Page, the famous bondage model in the 50s, did a fair amount of spanking photos and reels, but she looked like she was in on the joke. She didn't convey a passion for spanking or being spanked. A famous movie scene in "Woman of the Year" in 1942 where Spencer Tracy spanked Katharine Hepburn was tongue-in-cheek--but, again, still doesn't seem all that sexual even reading today's context into it. The overt sexualizing of spanking is a fairly recent phenomenon.
ALEX: Yeah, it used to be covert, now it's overt--like from the Cold War to Guantanamo Bay.
SUSAN: Again, doesn't that reflect our increasing comfort with violent even if the act is only symbolically so?
ALEX: Acceptance of violence is part of the culture. Quentin Tarrantino has made a career out of romanticizing violence. "True Romance," "Pulp Fiction," "Natural Born Killers" which he helped write--aren't these ultimate American romance/violence films? Spanking is a simple consensual act between two adults, not romantic violence.
SUSAN: Remember Lisa Kudrow's Phoebe character in "Friends" confiding that she liked an occasional gentle spanking? And Madonna's "Hanky Panky" song? Spanking, as they say, is the new cuddling.
ALEX: [Laughing,] Who knew that a couple of whacks on the ass would draw this much attention?
SUSAN: More than a couple...more like a couple hours. Women have commented on that too. As one woman wrote: "A few slaps on the ass are sexy; two hours is corporal punishment." I must admit that I relate the two hour spanking session to Victorian porn with its flagellation obsession. Porn from that period is easy to analyze: A sex-fearing, sex-hating culture wielding the whip against people who liked sex. SO...Is spanking a way of putting sexual women in their place?
ALEX: Maybe, for some women, but not for most. I see three categories of women who like to be spanked: women into serious pain, utter masochists; those with psychological issues who want to be punished for being sexual; and the majority of women who want a little more intensity, who are comfortable in pushing the envelope.
SUSAN: And the spanking girl?
ALEX: Well, she said she was bad.
SUSAN: Do you think that women are "badder" than men?
ALEX: They like to think so.
SUSAN: Will a romantic comedy ever be built around your marathon spanking session?
ALEX: "Exit to Eden" was so bad. Surely some good romantic mainstream comedy will come out of the mainstream BDSM scene.
SUSAN: One last question: How long before Spanking Girl could sit down following your session? And did you call the next day to inquire about the condition of her ass?
ALEX: She seemed able to sit down the next morning after yoga. I was still in her apartment.
SUSAN: Wait a minute--you stayed over after she threw up?
ALEX: I had to pass out somewhere. The good news: She was sitting fine on a bar stool at Mollys just an hour ago, next to the woman I was chatting up.
SUSAN: Alex, as interest in these interviews builds and they become more and more widely read--do you think you'll ever get laid again?
ALEX: I'm looking for a woman who doesn't Google. [And as he walked out the door]: I'm going back to that bar to see if the new woman Googles.
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