Posted by Penny_Louise on Wed 15 Aug 07, 6:22 PM to Penny_Louise's blog.
It's easy to see a need to be spanked as a kink or a fetish, to dismiss it as such. A disorder, an abnormality, a deviance, a perversion.
It's easy to say it arises from childhood development, a linking of an authoritative figure, often the Mother. Often linked, too, with high heels and stockings, the obvious gender markers. That recreating the nurture and 'holding', even if a painful experience, creates a regression to simpler and more comfortable times, that it feeds the inner child.
It's easy to say that guilt may be assuaged by 'taking' a punishment, and that by choosing your punishment to be a spanking, a sensual process that does challenge but also presents an erotic opportunity, is an obvious way to deal with that guilt.
It extends to caning, too, the association then being to a head teacher rather than a parent, but the obvious reasons and results are very similar, if a little more extreme.
And perhaps all of these are true, at least to some extent. But I see such a relaxation into the actual process, such a relief of stress, such happiness, such letting go that I know what I am doing for my subjects far transcends any minor issue, and that if indeed, if this is the remedy for an 'issue', that issue would surely have been more evident than it inevitably is.
I know of my own experiences of being spanked: I know I have no problems with any of these issues myself, and yet I, too, feel that overwhelming relief and letting go and happiness.
My theory is that the endorphins released in spanking, from that mixture of nurture, care, trust and sensation ('pain' has far too many negative values attached to even consider using in this context) have evolved to create the one of ultimate 'feel good' factors, to bond a child to it's parents, carers and authority figures. To enable it to accept guidance, correction, punishment when well-meant and well-intentioned. And that this mechanism persists into adulthood, and it is only adult inhibitions, taboos and moral code that prevent it's being seen as normal and acceptable. I believe that anyone could enjoy and benefit from a loving spanking, if only they would let themselves.
Which leads to two important points to consider:
Is the outlawing of physical punishment for children bypassing an important, powerful and well-evolved respect mechanism?
Can adult spanking, rather than being something someone should seek therapy for, be itself an important therapeutic process?
Spanking releases the same endorphins related to happiness and well-being that Prozac does, it re-establishes trust in life's processes, it has only minor side effects (it's addictive and you get a red bottom!!) and it gives a good space to talk about life's problems, creating, as it does, a trust in the 'therapist' and at the same time, an optimism in life perhaps not normally present.
Edited Fri 5 Jun 09, 6:49 PM by Penny_Louise
