No sex please - we're spankos.

I think Alan makes a very interesting observation in his original post, albeit accepting the qualification that it may be the ends of a continuous scale rather than a simple dichotomy. I also think Cindy2 makes an important point about there being a distinction between spanking in stories or spanking in real life. It is a distinction that those of us in a vanilla relationship must observe, especially if we wish to remain in that relationship!

Confining myself to the fictional aspects, I would see myself in the 'spanking as foreplay' camp - stories in which naughty children or teens get their just deserts tend to leave me cold, although I find stories in which naughty adults get spanked, even if not overtly sexual, interesting because they usually implicitly involve themes such as submission and humiliation. I also think Alan may be correct when he suggests that 'my type' are less catholic in their tastes - my preference is for M/F, F/F or even F/M, but although I read M/M stories I do so out of curiosity in an attempt to learn more about what makes other people tick than a direct prurient interest. One point where I differ from Alan is when he suggests that some readers are disappointed if spanking does not lead to sex - I find some of the most erotic stories are those in which no sex actually takes place, but it is 'in the air'.

I believe an alternative solution for such emotionally affected men is to cry into a sock.

From what I recall, the American Psychiatric Association recognizes four levels of paraphilia. Basically, there's people who like to dabble in a fetish, people who always prefer fetishistic sex but still enjoy vanilla sex, people who cannot enjoy vanilla sex without their fetish, and people who don't like sex at all and only get off on their fetish without any actual intercourse.

I'd be a category two, on that scale. I'd always incorporate spanking into my erotic activities if I could, but I can still get enjoyment out of sex without it.

Of course, wholly separate from this scale are the people who like sex, and who like spanking, but don't like to mix the two together.

Bob, emotionally affected men who "cry into a sock." LOL. I love it.

Hi, SNM, My oh my, thank goodness for the APA's categories. LOL. Hmmm, I can fit 3 into out of the four depending on the fetish activity and the mood I'm in that day so I guess they didn't help me define myself too well..

The other thing is these categories are for fetishes and we are discussing spanking, and while spanking is definitely a fetish for folks like us, like I said in my other post, it can be enjoyed sexually, innocently (quirky penalties for dares and games...or birthday spanks at a party) or asexually (genuine punishment spankings even for adults). How do the last two categories fit into a definition of fetish?

I've been researching D/s and BDSM all of my life and experiencing it as well. I find as I get older and learn more.....the less anything fits into a neat box. Whereas when I was in my 20's I thought I could clinically define it all precisely. Then as time went on all I did was continually revise my definitions until I just gave up and threw out the notion that any of this can be precisely contained in any single category.

But, I'm sure the APA worked very hard on their theory, so I'll give them a pat on the head for trying.

I don't think Marge would approve but it is spanking I have spent the last fifty odd years daydreaming about not sex.

I tend to think of these types of categories as descriptive, not proscriptive. They're arbitrary lines drawn wherever the APA felt like it was most convenient to draw them, and don't always apply.

My point in posting was just to say that its widely known that fetishism and sexuality are both a matter of degrees, and that the topic of this thread is one that's been researched - though perhaps not specifically in regards to spanking.

I'm not sure what group I fall under. However, Dark River summed it up for me. I am also very picky about what I read. There are really only a very tiny number of stories on here that really do it for me. These are stories involving the discipline of teen girls. Of course there are many thousands of wonderful stories here written by very talented authors, I just prefer a very specific scenario. I guess in any other forum, this would be really troubling. I also fall under the category of spanking being the main event. As some on here know, I have been involved in some spanking videos. I have also met with many women one - on - one. The one rule has always been spanking only, no sex. This has never bothered me in the least. For me, sex would ruin the experience. I am "spanking only". When I look at girls / women on the street my thoughts are never I want to have sex with her. I do fantasize about a spanking scenario involving them or how nice it would be to really lay a wooden paddle to her bare a**.

The APA scheme does seem to be an improvement on the two categories I started with, and maybe that system could be further extended too. I can understand why some people dislike the idea of classification, I think we'd all agree that the psychology of spanking is very complex, but surely we have to have some notion of what type of spanko we are, or how do we choose a story to read or a partner to play with? It's only one way of lookign at things, of course. We could also classify ourselves on the basis of mild vs severe, role-play vs discipline, and so on. On the subject of reading habits, they may not reflect the spanking activities (if any) that people are engaging in, but I suspect they reflect the activities people would like to engage in.

I attempted to give a description of different aspects of spanko psychology in an article in the Wellred Weekly, volume 1, issue 6. It's called "Let's compare spankologies". End of self-plug.