Accepting My Kink

You wouldn't think it would be a big deal-- asking my husband of 18 years to spank me. After all, he knew I was somewhat into the idea. I'd confessed it when we were in our twenties. He'd spanked me once and then had anal sex with me for the first time and we'd both enjoyed it. But I don't think he realized how much spanking was a part of my sexual fantasies, that it was the only scenario to which I masturbated, that I thought about it every day.

It was not until I received the contract for my first spanking fiction book that I fully came out of the closet. We were in the bedroom for a quickie while the kids were busy and I just asked for it. “Will you spank me?” I ventured.

“Ah, all right. Sure.”

Okay, that wasn't so hard, I realized. Why had it taken me so long to ask?

Well, it's embarrassing for one thing. Kinky sex is the subject of water cooler jokes-- and people who engage in it open themselves up for that kind of mockery. And it's painful, for another. Which means the rational part of my brain intercepted the sexual part every time I even considered acting out any of my fantasies in real life. There's also a humiliation factor to spanking-- so actively requesting it takes a leap, even with the man who has seen me at my very worst.

The truth is, I'd kept spanking as my deepest, darkest secret for my entire life. I've been interested in it for as long as I can remember. I wasn't spanked as a child, but I used to get extremely excited when another child shared their spanking experiences. I spanked my dolls. I fell asleep at night with my fingers between my legs, imagining whatever character in the book I'd just read was spanking me (or getting spanked).

Writing spanking romance was the best thing that could have happened to me. I've always walked around with intricate spanking stories playing out in my head and I was somewhat shocked to discover that not everyone had that (the stories, not the spanking part). I was in the midst of writing my first medieval romance, editing out the spanking scenes that showed up in my imagination, when I discovered there was actually a genre of fiction made just for me: spanking romance! It was as if I heard the angels singing. I wrote up my first manuscript in six days and two weeks later it was published. Alas, no manuscript has rolled out of me as quickly as that first.

So there I was, bent over the bed, getting spanked by a husband who was willing to oblige and realizing that until that moment, this expression of myself had been conspicuously missing from my life. My body was more ready for sex by the time we got to it than it had ever been, and the orgasm was phenomenal.

But as we continued to explore dominance and submission over the next several months, I realized that the repercussions were far more extraordinary than better orgasms. The effects of accepting my kink reached into all aspects of my life.

One of the reasons I'd always tried to suppress my interest in spanking was that I believed it made me too submissive with men in general. I noticed that male authority figures had the ability to make me go weak in the knees. At work I would cower from confrontation with a man in a higher position than me, which obviously was detrimental to corporate ladder climbing.

To be honest, I'd been a bit skittish toward men in general my whole life. I've always attracted a fair amount of attention from men, but unless I was in a particularly frisky mood, I cringed from it. I've never been the sort of woman who could let a man buy her a drink, just to get the free drink. I worried overmuch about sending any sort of sexual signals, even in the mere interest of friendliness.

What was interesting was that as soon as I began exploring my kink in the bedroom, I noticed that out in the world, I no longer felt afraid of men. For the first time in my life, I liked the male gender as a whole-- as opposed to select men who had earned my trust. It seemed amazing and ironic-- but becoming a spanked wife had made me more confident with men in general!

I believe part of it is just being self-actualized. I'm no longer denying myself something that is important to me. I'm no longer telling myself that I am weird or wrong to crave such a thing. I still can't explain WHY I would crave such a thing, but I spend far less time wondering about it these days.

So it seems I've found empowerment through submission-- an irony that continues to amuse me. If only I'd known sooner...