What Is A Spanking Story?

I don't even have to think about this one. It's the imagination. No contest.

If the fully rendered adaptation just happened to fit my taste perfectly and push all my personal buttons (extremely unlikely unless I was the director) it would be great. But 99% of the time, it would be imagination.

I am not sure if this was what SpankingTheatre was asking, but the question could be interpreted as a preference between video or literature. The female bottom takes many beautiful forms (as some of you may have noticed) but every so often I see one that captivates me in a way that is simply beyond my capacity to imagine, let alone describe in words. So for me video definitely has a play to role. However, when it comes to eroticism, good writing (such as SpankingTheatre's) wins hands down.This may partly be because the plot lines in spanking videos are usually very shallow. However, it seems to me that the main problem is that the visual media do not have the same capacity to get inside the actors' heads, although great actors can sometimes come close by their ability to convey emotions - this may be why some mainstream films that do not actually show very much are sometimes much more erotic than their much more explicit counterparts. The secret sometimes is not what is said or shown, but what is left to the imagination, but it still needs something to trigger the imagination. Speaking of which, I see a new batch of stories has just arrived!

Not that easy a question to answer, for me.

I'd have to answer in thirds. At times, literature paints the most vivid landscape and arouses and fulfills. At other times, video is better and fulfills and sates. At other times still, only a bouncing beauty's buns over my lap is the only thing to sate and satisfy (yet that obviously isn't a story).

Hear me out, when you talk about "satisfying" or "arousing" the imagination should reign supreme, but is based on human limitations. One can only imagine as much as our experiences. If our experiences are few or none, then the imagination is all we have to base on. Yet that can only sate so far...

Video adaption brings the real thing closer to fulfilling and allows imagination to fill in the missing parts, so to speak, but sometimes our imagination is better because we might be "particular" in our tastes, and would prefer "more romantic" over "more brutal," or "more slipper" over "more paddle." I'm sure you get the idea. We are talking about what we perceive as the "perfect" spanking. Honestly, I have great issue with some tops in videos: with the way they take too long "dressing down," or reiterate too much, or the "Parkinson's like" wagging of the hand to make it seem like there is more action going on than there actually is. I think, sometimes, the top tries to top the viewer; to drag out the anticipation as much as they can instead of just getting to it.
edit: Something else that really rouses anger over arousal in video, is the predication of the top to look into the bottoms face, or see the bottoms facial reactions while administering said punishment, which often means that they are not focusing on what they are "doing," meaning that a slap (or, heaven forbid, crop, or paddle strike) goes far afield from the desired target, "but who cares because it's only about 'pain', and there's no such thing as 'bad pain' and 'good pain', right?"

I don't think anybody would disagree that a real-life experience trumps all else, as that SHOULD take the cake. And yet sometimes...

I'll try to be more succinct and analytical. Literature can be fulfilling if it provides enough detail for the imagination without becoming too verbose. Video can be more fulfilling if it can be poignant without too much window dressing. Ultimately, we are seeking to fulfill in those two forms of media what we are missing out on; real life experiences. Yet how often is the chase, more fulfilling than the capture? Which brings us back to imagination.

Therefore, we have come back to my first statement that answering the question isn't easy for me.

This is a fascinating thread and I'm very glad it was resurrected so I could find it and read it. I'm of the opinion that it's impossible to define 'spanking story' in a way that would exclude all non-spanking stories, include all stories with themes of spanking and satisfy the needs, preferences and opinions of all spanking fetishists. If someone says their story is a spanking story, I'll believe them, even if it's not a story I'd personally consider one.

In this context, it's our beloved Head Librarian who has to make that difficult decision. I don't know exactly what her definition is, but I've always been grateful that it's a broad one which leaves plenty of scope for us writers to try something a bit different. She does have her limits though. I once had a limerick rejected because it was about this site rather than about spanking. Quite right too - I felt suitably chastened!

To me it's a combination of fantasies, preferences, imagination with maybe some real life thrown into the mix.

Rain
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