Suspension of disbelief

It could be that teenagers are the age group least likely to accept a spanking in a positive spirit. They often have a feeling of alienation from their parents, and are desperate to be treated as grown-ups which spanking flies in the face of. The "wholesome" spanking requires maturity from the spankee, which means they would be less likely to earn a spanking in the first place!

Possibly too, the widespread spanking of teenagers is another myth, or at least an exaggeration of spanking fiction. I'm fairly sure when I was growing up, most parental spankings would have been given to younger children, and the spanking of teenagers was relatively rare.

I think this another very good point, although the degree of mortification may to some extent be cultural - it is probably a good deal worse to be spanked if one thinks one is the only one than if it is seen as a natural part of growing up.

This could very well be. I know of a couple of instances where teenagers were spanked when I grew up (although spanking, even of children, was definitely on the way out), but that was in very conservative families and for what was obviously seen as quite serious offences. We Europeans tend to regard the US as the haven of teenage spanking, so perhaps our American friends can help us find how common this phenomenon is (or used to be)?

I thought, as a teenage boy, that I was the only kid in my age group ever spanked. Still, when I went into the US Army, I heard many tales of spankings other high school kids endured, mainly boys of course. I can only assume that this activity is simply something that boys don't want to share with anyone except their best friend. Or perhaps not even a trusted friend. Still, trust that it definitely did happen back in the 50s and possibly even more often in earlier decades. Another thing, spanking is a rather tame definition considering what would happen to a teen boy back in the day. Usually it was a strapping of some sort but I did hear women say they would spank their latter teen sons so who really knows what all may have happened behind closed doors way back when ...