Spanking Myself

The cardinal rule of spanking safety is never to strike someone, including yourself, either on the tailbone or above it, where the kidneys are, as this can cause serious, even life-threatening, injury. So stay away from those areas and keep your blows on the fleshy part of the butt and if you like, the upper thighs.

It is also way too easy to accidentally strike one’s own genitals when spanking oneself, since these are, of course, in close proximity to the intended landing zone. Some people like that sort of thing, but most of us (especially those of us who have testicles) would probably rather avoid that kind of pain. This is more of an issue with some positions, and some spanking implements, than with others, as I’ll note below, but it needs to be kept in mind with all of them. It only takes one badly aimed whack, and you are in serious agony.

Since it is so difficult to know exactly where a blow will land, it is important to be really careful where one aims. And to start out slowly. I usually get myself into a rhythm at first, lightly tapping my butt with (say) a ruler before going for a firmer whack. Tick, tick, whack! Tick, tick, whack! The rhythm has its own attractions, as does the sound. And then, as I get warmed up and more certain of how I am positioned, where my arm is, and so forth, I can dispense with the tracers and deliver a series of blows one right after the next.

One more point along these lines. Because you cannot see your own ass as you wallop it, and because you will, if you spank yourself well, eventually be more consumed with the conflagration on your butt than with the device in your hand, it can be very difficult to judge what kind of damage you might be doing to yourself. It is important, therefore, to stop from time to time and examine your ass. It's always good to stop, anyway, after you've really warmed your butt, to rub it for comfort. Have a look at yourself in a mirror, too. This is fun, since one of the joys of spanking is the sight of a bright red ass, maybe with some darker red stripes running across it. (Mmm!) Look and feel for welts and bruises, and for places where the skin is starting to become raw or inflamed. You do not have to cut yourself to cause bleeding. The skin can simply become so inflamed that it will crack. You should try realistically to assess where you are, and where your butt is, before you continue, if that is what you intend to do.

I am not, I should be clear, saying that welts, bruises, and bleeding are necessarily to be avoided. If you give yourself a good spanking (or have someone else give you one), you are likely to have some welts and bruises. These are normal responses to the kind of punishment a spanking inflicts on your bottom. Some people like to be pushed beyond that point to where they are, in fact, bleeding. In truth, it’s not difficult at all to break the skin. But as I said, if someone else is doing the spanking, they will get a constant, visual update on where things are, and they can slow down or stop the moment they become concerned, or feel that enough physical damage has been done. You, on the other hand, cannot see what you are doing, and as a result, it is easy to find out, too late, that you have given yourself a much more severe dose than you had intended, especially when endorphins are flowing through your system and blinding you to pain.

Trust me. I know of what I speak.

So, with all of those warnings in place, let me say a few things from my own experience about how to go about spanking oneself for fun and sexual profit.

First, the position. Obviously, you need your butt to be exposed, but you also need at least one of your arms to be free, and you need to be in a position where that arm can move with some strength. You also need to be able to maintain that position and still be able to spank yourself, even as the pain from doing so starts to increase. That limits a bit what kind of position works.

Many people seem to prefer just lying on the bed. This is comfortable, obviously, and you don’t have to worry about supporting yourself if your legs give out. If you have a penis and testicles, you can tuck them under yourself so they are nicely out of the way. Other people like standing. This amounts to a very similar position, though one's testicles (if one has them) tend to be more exposed, unless the legs are kept very close together. That, however, makes it more difficult to stand, and it gets more difficult as things get serious. Yet others prefer kneeling, which has a lot of the advantages of standing, but isn't as hard to maintain. And of course you can vary the positions as you wish.

The position that usually works best for me is kneeling in front of a sofa or chair. Since I want my butt to hurt, not my knees, I put a pillow on the floor to cushion them. The nice thing about this position is that it is two positions in one. I can kneel up, or I can lie my upper body down on the couch. So then it's as if I'm on all fours, but I don't need to use my arms to support myself (which is good, since one of them is otherwise busy). The lying position feels appropriately submissive and it stretches the buttocks a bit, which seems to make any given blow more effective. On the other hand, I seem to have better control and am able to generate more power when I'm kneeling up, so I often start out that way. But when I really start whacking myself, sometimes I can't kneel anymore, and then my upper body can just collapse onto the couch.

Of course, this works best with certain kinds of couches. We have one in our bedroom that is like a chaise lounge with a very long seating area, so I can lay my upper body completely flat along it. A couch without arms would work just as well if you were on the side of it. I've done this kind of thing in our basement, too, where we have a more traditional sofa with arms and that works well enough. I can't lie my torso fully across the sofa, but I can lean forward and rest my head against the back of it, which provides some support.

The second issue is what you will use to spank yourself. As I said above, one simply can't have the same kind of control when spanking oneself that one would have when spanking someone else. You can't see what you're doing, the angle is awkward, you can't generate as much power as someone else could, and you can't see what you're doing. (Did I mention that you can't see what you're doing?) So it's important to choose your weapon wisely.

What works best for me, and is definitely easiest to use, is something short and relatively rigid, such as a ruler, a paddle, or a hairbrush. Something long can easily wrap around your hips and strike you in the genitals or stomach, and something too flexible is almost impossible to aim. Two of my favorite implements (if "favorite" is the right word) were made from clothes hangers. One was constructed from a typical wire hanger, by unbending it to make something akin to a crop. The other was made from a heavy plastic hanger. I used steel sheers to cut out the horizontal bit at the bottom, making something not unlike a very short cane. Both are very effective and very easy to use.

But there are lots of other options. I almost always give myself a few whacks with my hand. I find, though, that it can be difficult to get it into just the right position, and that can actually lead to there being more pain in your hand than in your butt, which isn't so good. I have a belt I use from time to time, too. It's a heavy, leather belt (plastic ones are useless) that I double over and then hold about a foot from the end. It can be difficult to get just where I want it, but it provides a nice mix of sting and thud when it hits the right spot. I've used slippers as well, but only when I know I can handle some serious hurt.

The final issue, then, is maybe the most important of all: the psychological one. Many self-spankers like to engage in various forms of fantasy, constructing on their own the sorts of roleplays in which a couple might engage. Perhaps you are the naughty student who has been taken to the principal's office one too many times, and now, apparently, you really need to be taught a lesson! It's even possible to live both sides of this fantasy at once: to be the spanker as well as the spankee. If you enjoy both sides of this game, that can be really fun.

Speaking for myself, though, I tend not to engage in such fantasies. The act of submitting, willingly, to a spanking is more than enough for me, and somehow I don't really get that into spanking myself, but only into being spanked. The person giving the spanking is somehow not me, not in the moment. But it would not surprise me if that were a somewhat idiosyncratic part of my own practice, since spanking is, for me, a kind of therapy, as I recounted in my first article.

Still, an important part of being spanked by a partner is the consensual transfer of power to the spanker, and many self-spankers want there to be something similar. What some people do, then, is cede power to the universe or, better, to the laws of probability. With what implement will you be spanked? In what position? How many times? It is easy to set up a simple system for randomizing these elements, if only by rolling dice. And when you do, you have ceded power, even if it is not clear exactly to what.

I am sure many people who have the pleasure of being spanked regularly by a partner would regard self-spanking as a sorry imitation of the real thing. And, in many ways, I agree. I would rather not have to spank myself all the time, but wish very much that I had a partner with whom I could share this experience. But, to return to the theme with which we started, just as I continue to masturbate, even though I love to have sex with my wife, I am sure I could continue to spank myself, even if she were more enthusiastic about spanking me. Neither masturbation nor self-spanking need to a substitute for "the real thing." Each can be enjoyed on its own terms.

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Disclaimer: Nothing in this note should be taken as encouragement for anyone to spank themselves, let alone to injure themselves. This note is intended only to provide advice to those who are already inclined to engage in this kind of practice.