Just a dream some of us had?

As I was reading Susan Thomas' story "Melanie and her Stepfather" earlier today, an old question reappeared. The story depicts a spanking the way we spankos often like to think of them: Just, administered with love and concern, received in the same spirit, and leading to forgiveness and closer bonds between spanker and spankee.

This is definitely the way I liked to dream of spankings when I was a teenager, but had I ever succeeded in obtaining one (I made some feeble attempts), my guess is that it would just have been humiliating, painful, and leading to a feeling of estrangement. So the question is if there is anything in these ideas at all? Has anybody received (or heard of) a real spanking given by a figure of authority (say a parent or a teacher) that has actually brought the spanker and the spankee closer, or at least made the spankee feel better? (I am sure this happens all the time in spankings between consenting adults, but psychologically that is a totally different ball game.)

This is a very insightful question, and I imagine that the instances when a real life spanking from an authority figure approaches the spanko ideal of bringing two parties closer together are rather rare. In my personal life, I remember one incident where the aftermath of a spanking made me feel good in the sense that it made me feel that my mom loved me.

Neither of my parents were affectionate by nature when I was growing up with my four siblings. I don't blame them in any way for that because there must have been something in their own upbringings that made them the way they were, but I just don't remember them showing any of us much affection when we were young.

My mom did spank us, but my father never did. I don't remember the spankings being all the frequent or being especially harsh, but they definitely hurt. With the exception of one, my recollection is that she always used a hairbrush, and I think a lot of the spankings were triggered by the stress of having to deal with five unruly kids who only differed in age by seven years from youngest to oldest. The chief emotions that I associate with the hairbrush spanking that I received are pain and resentment.

There was one instance when my mom whipped me with a belt, and this is the one case where I remember having pleasant feelings in the aftermath of the spanking. I was probably something like seven or eight years old when she whipped me, and my recollection is that it was triggered by me running around and screaming my head off while one of my younger sisters was chasing me a belt (obviously we engaged in some pretty strange play activities ). I think what made my mom mad was that my sister was so much younger than me that there was no way she could have hurt me even if she had caught me. The commotion that I was making must have gotten on my mom's last good nerve that day so she took the belt from my sister and whipped me with it.

I know getting a whipping like that probably sounds awful, but the good feeling came into play a day or two later when my mom noticed a bruise that the whipping had left on my right hip. She asked me where the bruise came from, and I tearfully told her it was from the whipping she given me with the belt previously. Once my mom realized what she had done when she lost her temper, I could tell that she was very remorseful, and sensing this, I believed that she really did love me even if she did have a hard time of showing it. So in this one case. at least, I can associate positive emotions associated with a childhood spanking. In addition, I have often wondered if this one particular spanking and its aftermath was one of the major contributors to my life-long interest in spanking.

You raised a gr8 question .
I was spanked as a kid. LOL my experiences were the reverse of Kyle's - I was spanked with a belt, mostly, except for some instances where I was punished with a hairbrush or a wooden board. These spankings hurt. I remember that, as a six year old, I mentally nicknamed that wooden board "dread", long before I really knew what the word meant. Just the thought of it made my toes want to curl in and hide.
My last two whippings were at 14. In one, my mom hit me across the legs many times with a shoe because I wouldn't tell her something. In the other, I was hit with a belt, and when I refused to cry, dad threatened to go for this thing that I guess was some sort of leather paddle, something he'd hit my younger brother with.
Spankings never brought me closer to my parents, as far as I could remember. To me, that would have just been weird. They served their purpose - getting me to shut up and sit down for half an hour or so, and, occasionally, correcting a behavior. Like Kyle's mom, my mom was stressed, both as a married mom of four kids who were about a year Ans a half apart apiece (I would have had a sister who was a year and a half younger than my brother and a year and a half older than I was, had she not died at 7 months in the womb) . But the thought of feeling "closer" to my parents after a whipping is weird, to me. Fantasies are gr8, but in my mind you just don't do that with your real parents.
Of course, according to many spankos, a very long and severe spanking can accomplish the whole surrender and closeness thing. Maybe if I'd been beaten black and blue as a kid / teenager?
*hugs* to every1, and hope I didn't anything wrong or that made any1 feel bad or weird. Was just saying my personal feelings.

When I was just slapped once when I was walking past my mother, it didn't really hurt and I had no feelings one way or the other when I was a child. On those few occasions when I really did receive a spanking, I was resentful and I still, as an adult, harbor that resentment. One particular spanking was given to me out of frustration I am sure and it was given to me with a wooden hairbrush by my mother when I was young--maybe 6 or 7--I'm not exactly sure. I can't describe how much it hurt. On another occasion I was much older and had been misbehaving to the point that a family breakup was imminent. Literally. My father threatened to leave us and the only way he was willing to stay is if I'd submit to a spanking because he couldn't deal with my lousy behavior. I did submit. He made me bare myself from the waist down and get on my stomach on the bed. My mother was watching. I didn't know how bad it would be. He gave me just a single tap. I almost couldn't feel it. He just wanted to make a point--that he had some control. Nevertheless, I hated him for it. I just can't get that out of my mind. How I can get off on the idea of being spanked today I'll never know.

I think it is just a dream or fantasy. My spankings from my father were very matter-of-fact and almost businesslike: "you did x or didn't do y and so i will spank you (or after age 10 use the belt on you)." A foster father spanked me a few times but with him it was simply anger. I said something that made him angry and he would order my pants down or order me over his knee or maybe he would just charge at me with his eyes blazing and his teeth bared, rolling up his sleeve.

So if I hear someone describe a spanking as a kid that fits the fantasy I assume that it is indeed a fantasy. Maybe I am just old jaded and cynical.

I think the fantasy speaks to many human needs. the need for justice to be done, the need for familial closeness and mutual protection/safety, and catharsis.

It's called reverse psychology, Cindy. It's the same as (but not in the mentally deranged way) that some kids end up hating women or hating men because of their home life and becoming killers. We look back at those times and now have time to think about them in a positive way. What your father did was an excellent way in showing you who was in charge. The evil part of memories of punishments is when the parents are truly overbearing and abusive. It's then that some people as in the Eurythmics' Annie Lennox song (Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This) her words: Some of them want to abuse you, some of them want to be abused..

Those of them who want to abuse us we stay clear of. Those of them who want to be abused, we do it in style, and it really isn't abusive at all. Those of them on the receiving end just think it is. That's also something to be aware of and keep in check. Although sad, it may be something mental in their case.

Wow Cindy *hugs hugs hugs hugs hugs*

The only spanking I remember from my childhood made me resentful of my Mom. It was totally unjustified since it was the teacher's fault the incident happened but my Mom wouldn't listen to me. After about age 6 I can't remember ever getting a spanking. Oddly I haven't become an ardent anti-spanker.

I think it only works like that in old black and white movies, Alef.

It's hard for me to remember clearly my feelings after being spanked. I do remember that I would run to my room afterwards crying. Not because it was painful, but because it made me feel miserable. Very unlike anything I would put in a story.