When did you first realize?

Well TEM... I think you may have hit the nail on the head (or the hand on the bottom as it were) . This, for a great many of us, might indeed have been the trigger!

I have to disagree Newborns have no memory

Believe it or not, I first realized my "interest" at age four. I watched a cartoon that featured a Japanese mouse getting hairbrush spanked by, I think, his father. I went to our bathroom and smacked myself a few times with a hairbrush (cheap plasticky thing) and was perplexed at how I felt. Several months later, I had met my first girlfriend! Yes, at four, I met the woman I would someday marry! Or, so I thought! She and I were playing in a blanket fort we made and my mother caught us "being kids?" and threatened to paddle both of us with one of those flimsy paddleball things that you count as you try to connect the tethered rubber ball with the paddle. I never got past three, but, I digress! That threat made me feel like I did those weeks earlier in the bathroom. Now, I wonder whether she felt that same tingle? Anyway, that was how it all "started" for me, an interest, a tingle. I was hooked!

If your Mother had carried through with her threat on the bare bottom, imagine how that would have gone.

@Often123

If she had, and spanked the love of my life (All four years of it) as well, who knows. Mom never did spank me, only my father at about ten. It was horrid, my older brothers watched and had set me up as well. It was a pants down affair, and probably five swats! The indignity and the injustice worked horrors in my mind as I felt sorry for myself in my bedroom. Later, mom got home from work and stuck her head in and asked if I had gotten spanked. bare bottom. She had this weird smirk on her face and I didn't know if I felt, embarrassed or what. I did feel that damn tingle again! What a psychological mess we people can create from the most inane experiences! I do know, now, that it is the humiliation of spanking that is my trigger, not the pain. I know this because at about the same time I had my temperature taken at a very crowded clinic with me draped over my mother's knee in full view of everyone, again, bare bottom, and that situation brought about the same feelings! Thanks , MOM!

Evidently you're not referring to the famous (indeed almost legendary) Cracker Barrel paddle, father jim. They're no longer sold at CB stores, alas; but I have one and, as several rosy-bottomed young ladies I've used it on can tell you, flimsy it is not! It's of seven-ply beechwood and, I'm reliably informed, stings like the very devil.

@PhilK

Not sure Cracker Barrel even existed back then, @1961, but you have the right idea. Is it wrong of me to be mad at my now departed mother for NOT paddling my girlfriend? On well, one for the couch, I'm sure! As it was, I wouldn't see my first female bottom till six years later. That, they say is another story!

fatherjim, I agree, it's more than just the spanking itself, there are numerous other factors at work
PhilK, I've heard of those too. Oddly enough, some years back I saw a paddleball at a local market that wasn't a flimsy affair, it was made of plywood as I recall and was blood red.

I was completely in fear of the cane while I was at secondary school (I had had it on the hand a couple of times at primary school ). I assumed, rightly or wrongly, that it would be painful beyond belief. I managed to get through school without encountering it and so thought that was that.

However when I shared a flat with other guys one of them started buying 'Penthouse' and I noticed that much of the letters column was concerned with anecdotes of school corporal punishment. Further stories were to be found in the associated discussion periodical, 'Forum'. I started to savour reading these and could hardly wait for the next issue. At the age of 22 my fear of the cane left me and I knew I wanted to experience it in reality. But I also felt that I must be a freak and kept quiet hoping the desires would go away.

But they never did - I am pleased to say - and I was able to enjoy the reality much later in life thanks to the arrival of the Internet. To me as an adult activity it is a great supplier of happiness - based on a good surge of endorphins.

I had my first spanking fantasy when I was six. Sadly, I cannot describe the scene now, lest it appear that the spanking library is publishing kiddie porn. Needless to say it was the first of many. I am convinced that my kinkiness is not a preference, but an orientation, as with homosexual/heterosexuality. I know that some great this perspective as a way to rationalize my kink and make it seem "normal." I say screw 'em, I know what I know.