Suspension of disbelief

The topic of 'suspension of disbelief' was brought up in the comments thread by Rik. My question is this: When are you prepared to "suspend disbelief" in an LSF story and when aren't you willing to do so?

For me, realism is a very important part of enjoying a spanking story. Anything that gets tossed in that makes me wince in doubt actually can ruin an entire story for me. The exception to this is any story that is fantasy or sci-fi based.....yet, even then, if the spanking portion is unrealistic, I will probably not like it very much. No matter the intent of the author, I am probably less likely to happily 'suspend disbelief' than most.

However, write something that rings true and touches upon some spanking issue I can personally relate to and I will probably cry tears of joy.

I too have a hard time with believing stories that are so far out of scope that they are simply impossible for me to imagine. For example when one gets whacked around 500 times with a paddle,,,not realistic to me and shows signs of sadism to me, but maybe to others it is acceptable.

So regardless of whether I can believe it or not, please dear fellow authors continue to write and I will strive my best to believe ... even though sometimes it is just not possible.

CS

In some cases you set out to deliberately push the boundaries of belief, though. I did that with an article I wrote for Bared Affair. I wanted to create totally ridiculous situations that could never exist in real life and present them in a news style format with a straight face, while knowing that the audience would be laughing at the idea. Juanone, who has work here, does that brilliantly. I still regard his story Or... as one of the best examples of spanking fiction I've been privileged to read.

Interesting about what people will believe on a spanking. I just read in another thread that someone would not believe a spanking of "hundreds of swats". And here you say 500 is not realistic.

I say this because I just got a marathon paddling of about 800 swats about two weeks ago and they were all hard ones too. I have also had similar experiences in the past that went even higher. They don't happen every time but they have happened often enough. My 'average' spanking is about 200. Sometimes I get a quick 50 but most of the time it's between 150 and 250. I know for a fact that I have received over 1000 on a couple of occasions. Of course these are split into installments, but only for breathers for both parties.

I even recall now that I'm writing this a long paddling with a lucite fraternity-style paddle that was given at a regular pace for the entire time it took a two-person jacuzzi tub to fill. I can't even guess the astronomical number that resulted in and at two cheeks at a time....which is like a double spanking from a single-cheek paddle.

(It's also interesting to note that I have received comments from readers telling me that certain aspects of my stories were "ok for fantasy" but not likely to happen in real life. What made these comments so amusing to me were that the situations pointed out as not believable were things I had actually personally experienced that I worked into a story. Go figure.)

I think all my spankings are very believable and realistic...since I only ever write about mild hand/hairbrush spankings.

Where you need to suspend belief is over the settings or situation. Nowadays I can't imagine any woman being being put otk, bared and spanked in public or even semi public. I certainly have never witnessed it happening.

Yet humiliation is a huge aspect of what turns me on about spanking and I think a witnessed punishment is the ultimate in humiliation. So I will continue to indulge my desires by writing works of complete fantasy, simply because that's what gives me pleasure.

XxxxX

This is where actual experience comes into play - spanking virgins can only imagine how it would feel!
A lot of emphasis is in the force used, and the implement, 100 spanks with little force compared to 50 of greater force for example. Prolonged spanking with adequate warm up can protect the bottom from damage, whereas no warm up and severe strokes may bruise. Heavy wooden paddles are likely to bruise anyway, canes will welt if the stroke is hard enough, but the sting of lighter strokes really counts at the time, but merely leave small bruises. It is also relevant as to the pain threshold of the spankee, we all have different tolerance levels. I do sometimes worry about repetitive strain injury to the hand where high numbers of hand spanks are delivered, or multiple spankings carried out by the same person, one after the other. I sometimes think the spankees in our stories are wimps as they cry and squeal quite early on, then, there are those severe punishments where I cringe and wonder how they tolerate it at all.
We also differ greatly as to what we will believe is a "good" story, humiliation is a thing I struggle with, but many thrive on it. I admit that I now write outside my own comfort zone, prompted by comments received, but then some people don't seem to like it.
So, our "kink" can be quite scientific at times, but it will always remain a personal preference as to the degree of severity, our belief in the reality (on a fiction site?) and the amount of enjoyment we derive from reading it. However, lets all enjoy it in our own way!

I just need to believe in the characters, their motivations, and the world that surrounds them. Most people's belief is colored by their own experience, so realism and believability become a shifting standard. In the spanko world, people with less real life spanking experience sometimes have a bias that certain things can't happen, just because it hasn't happened to, for or around them. As a writer and a reader, I worry less about real life and more about the life within the story.

Many of my favorite stories take place in a spankoverse version of our world that is just like ours but with a small % lean towards spanking. That said, there are cultures, places and people still living in our actual world that are closer to that adjusted spankoverse than one might think.

I also like realism - and in a rather stupid way: If I can convince myself that a spanking story is based on a real incident, it has a much greater effect on me. I know it's naive, but it seems to be the way I am built.

As a consequence, I try to write realistic stories - things that could have happened if you stretch your spanko imagination just a little bit - and this is also the kind of spanking story I prefer to read. It doesn't mean I don't like other kinds of stories, just that they usually don't fire up my fetish to the same degree.

Otherwise, I am with Patron in thinking that internal consistency is the main thing - what you do has to make sense within the universe you have created. In particular, this applies to character - I find it rather disconcerting to read stories where a loving father or husband suddenly turns into a spanking ogre and then returns to his ordinary self once the spanking is over. Makes me want to call the police...

It's perfectly possible to create a world that could never exist, but that has its own internal logic. You don't really "believe" in it, but only the more literal-minded people will object. What jars is if this world fails to be consistent.

Readers all have their own life experiences that "color" how they react to any certain story. These experiences can create barriers to us "believing" certain types of stories. For some it's underage spankees. For me, it's workplace spanking situations. I have simply spent too many decades in the workplace to be able to make myself "believe" most workplace spanking stories.

But life experiences also can build bridges! I grew up with spanking in my home and my school, so it's comparatively trivial to make me believe a domestic or school story.