Suspension of disbelief

I think it depends on what type of story you prefer. Domestic stories are my favorite. I also prefer stories where the spankee is female. So saying that I also should say I have no real life experience with spanking other than as foreplay as an adult. I was not spanked growing up and my husband has never punished me as an adult so an actual punishment spanking is foreign to me. This makes most stories unbelievable to me as far as what would happen in my real life. I always wonder what an actual punishment spanking would be like and use stories to fuel my fantasies. I read some stories and wonder if that is what really happens when you are spanked. Blisters for example, if someone actually applies a hairbrush to buttocks over and over do actual blisters raise up or is that just a saying. And 10 minutes over someone's lap. Is it reasonable to think someone can withstand a belt being applied to their bottom for that long and not jump up and run away or is it an exaggeration to make you understand it was a long time. Spanking inner thighs, seems logistically impossible while over the knee, but is it? Multiple implements? I believe most of what I read. It's probably what keeps me from actually trying these things out in real life. Goodness could you imagine a spanking virgin like me being able to withstand a 10 minute strapping? Sure I like to believe I can since some of my favorite characters can but could I really and is it a reasonable request for me to ask someone for this? So... Keep writing impossible stories, I believe them.

Guy

This is exactly what I mean, Guy. As a teen, I worked in a department store where me and my friend spanked several of the female employees, and he was a manager. It started off as playful and semi-sexy, but it evolved into semi-disciplinary. Some jobs, even in a more corporate environment, turn into somewhat of a summer camp environment where people are casually fooling around. It just takes the right personality types to make such activities fun rather than threatening.

You might be surprised to learn that some LSF authors are, in fact, "spanking virgins" who can write quite convincingly about the topic. Of course, real-life experiences provide a rich resource from which to draw; but there are talented authors here who have read a lot of spanking fiction as background and have the writing skill to create 'authentic' scenarios which satisfy many readers.

Just today I was commenting on a story called The Babysitter. I wrote the author: "At the point in the story where the adult male comes bursting into the bedroom knowing full well that an under aged teenage girl [the babysitter] is naked on top of the bed playing with his and his wife's sex toys I was forced to make a mental agreement with myself to suspend my usual need for some logic to a scenario and simply enjoy the ride." OK but sometimes I'm unable to just "enjoy the ride". For example, I once commented to an author that I found it unbelievable that a surgeon, knowing full well that any moment, he could be called into perform a delicate operation just as he had that very day would be spanking his three unruly teenagers a literally whopping total of 850 swats with his hand! That was just something I couldn't wrap my head around. By reading your story I'm agreeing to submerge myself into the universe you create. But you are contracted to make your world a cohesive and consistent one, otherwise I'm going to be jarred back into reality and that makes for a very unpleasant reading experience. I crave realism, I prefer to call it authenticity, and by that I don't mean a spankos skewered view of what's authentic as regards corporal punishment.

This is a a first rate repository of a very specific category of literature. Specific and at the same time incredibly diverse. I certainly don't expect to find everything here to be my cup of tea. Far from it, I am only truly pleased, in that special way, with a small percentage of the works I find here. But I do appreciate good writing even if the narrative takes off in a direction that ultimately disappoints me. Good writing allows me to escape into a world where I find myself captivated by interesting characters whose fate I actually care about. You do that for me and I am more than willing to let go of my grip on reality, to a point. Hey it's your world you can do what you want but like I said, please be consistent. My other suggestion, if you're going to err, err on the side of moderation.

As for having to be a spanker in order to write about spanking, I add this thought, the worlds of Oz, Narnia, Middle Earth and Neverland were quite wonderfully painted without the authors ever having stepped foot in Oz, Narnia, Middle Earth or Neverland.

Janine,
I was actually surprised when I first found out that many of our spanking authors are not "practising" or "experienced"spankers or spankees, so I am aware of the fact, and I was not intending my post to suggest anything wrong with that. The quality of the writing here is astounding and fantastically believable, in a fictional way ( if that makes sense?.)
For myself, I felt I needed to do some practical research so I could have a more realistic experience and understanding of how it feels and my husband obliged! It amazes me how diverse we all are, and we share a rich source of erotic or punishment spanking fantasy that we can all enjoy, in greater or lessor degree by what we enjoy reading.
Again, comments prove that what some find brilliant, others are barely moved by, what some consider reasonable, others find unacceptable, it is a phenomenon! But let's keep at it!

Sweetspot
I don't think the recurring examples of fantasy or science fiction stories as proof that a great story can be written without actual experience are valid. The biggest difference between OZ and spanking is that no one can visit OZ for comparison to the author's description. A person can experience a spanking and KNOW what is involved both physically and emotionally. Write about that topic without some level of knowledge (first or art least second hand) and the reader with experience might very well squint in disbelief. The second thing about these fantasy examples is that while they take place in an alternate world with alternate beings in them, there are usually strong parallels of behavior to types of people in our world that make the stories gripping for readers. The authors you mentioned all wrote stories with characters that behave like people or at least exaggerated versions of people.

Try this: how convincing would Steinbeck's stories be if he never met a poor person? How compelling would Thompson's Hell's Angels be if he didn't actually live with them but just wrote what he thought they'd be like?

I'm a big fan of practical research! More, please!

Since kdpierre cited one of my comments as the inspiration for this thread, I guess I should respond Though I had to go back and locate my actual post, because I couldn't remember what I'd said to inspire this thread.

Basically, many of the spankings I describe in my stories are completely unreasonable and unrealistic, some going well beyond 1000 spanks. I'm no "spanking virgin", though it has been quite a long time since I've had the opportunity to spank anybody. In fact, I've only had one spanking partner, and she was a genuine "virgin" in all senses of the word when we first began our relationship. As far as I recall, she wasn't spanked as a child; the first spanking she ever got came from me.

Despite her "inexperience", she turned out to have an astonishing (to me, at the time) level of pain tolerance. But, despite that tolerance, the longest spanking I ever gave her amounted to approximately 200 spanks. And that was with a light wooden ruler, and the majority of the spanks weren't especially hard. They just stung quite a bit. It was the only spanking I ever gave her that resulted in tears. She was 19 years old at the time.

Yet, in my stories, wherein most of my spankees are aged 14-17, hard spankings with paddles and belts frequently get into "hundreds" territory. My own personal experience tells me that spankings like that are completely unrealistic for girls in that age range. Yet I still write them.

To put it bluntly, I look at spanking fiction, or any other form of erotic fiction, in the same way that I look at Hollywood action movies. What are the most important factors in an action movie (or any other kind of movie)? Characterization (are the characters, and their motivations realistic?) and Story (is the plot sensible and believable?). As long as the answer to those two questions are "Yes", then the "action" is just frosting on the cake. Is the "action" in an "action movie" believable? In most cases the answer is "Absolutely not!". The action is, more often than not, completely over the top, and completely ridiculous. Like a car chase that results in millions of dollars in property damage. How often does that really happen in real life? The answer is probably "never".

As long as the Characters are believable and relatable, and the Story is believable and makes sense, then I expect most of us are able to suspend our disbelief when it comes to the Action.

So it is the same in spanking fiction, or any other genre of erotic fiction. Is a 500-stroke paddling any less believable than a series of vanilla sex scenes wherein every male character is swinging a 10" penis, and every female character sports massive breasts? In my opinion, "no". "Believability", to me, is not important when it comes to the "action" in a story.

Oooo! And in response to Elorac and njrick's bit about "practical research" ...

Given that it's been 25+ years since I've had a young lady to spank (or any lady to spank, for that matter), I will confess to resorting to spanking myself from time to time. Earlier this week, I decided to do some "practical research" on my two days off from work. I essentially spent the entire two days without getting dressed, lounging around my apartment sans clothing.

I positioned a paddle in a location that I had to pass frequently whilst moving about my apartment. A location that I simply could not avoid passing. And, each time I passed that paddle, I had to pick it up and administer ten spanks to each butt cheek. Get up from the computer to use the toilet? 20 spanks as I passed the paddle. Walking back from the bathroom to my computer? 20 more spanks.

I didn't keep track of the total, but I probably smacked my own ass over 1000 times over the course of those two days. And they weren't hard spanks. The natural instinct for self-preservation makes it hard to hit myself very hard, and the simple physical awkwardness required (plus a painful shoulder) makes it even more difficult to spank myself very hard. Yet, that old saying, "You won't be able to sit for a week!"? I did this all last Monday-Tuesday, and now it's Saturday, and I'm still sitting a bit uncomfortably.

I am sure having personal experience helps in writing spanking scenes, but it isn't enough in itself - just as having had sex thousands of times doesn't automatically make you a great erotic writer. It is not so much about the experience as about finding ways to describe it that seems new, fresh, and authentic. As with sex, it is probably easier to find fresh ways to describe what is happening in the mind than what is happening with the body.