Who is Wintermute?
Computer image by Sagemonn, published in Digital Beauties from Taschen Press
Prints of this artwork are available from the link above.
"Boss," she asked him, "you know Wintermute?"
"A name. Yes. To conjure with, perhaps. A lord of hell, surely.
Neuromancer by William Gibson, 1984
Did you ever wonder how you got to this place? I mean, I am totally and completely obsessed with spanking. It's the last thing I think about at night, and the second thing I think about upon waking. (First thing is coffee!) I don't know how I came to be this way. I do know that I've always had the interest
OneBrat a woman who posted briefly on a blog at Bethany's Woodshed
What is published on the Web may live longer than the author. I would like to keep my professional life separated from my private sexual life. Case Wintermute is a pseudonym, a nom de plume, a pen name. Those who have read William Gibson's book Neuromancer will immediately recognize the origin of the name. When I set up my email address on Yahoo there was a place for "first name", so I filled in Case. But I go by Wintermute in this part of my life.
OK, the basic statistics: I am a heterosexual man. At the time I write this, I am 52 years old. I live in what I call the Bay Area Sprawl (the San Francisco Bay Area).
I'm a rabid progressive Democrat who has been radicalized by the humiliation of the country I care for at the hands of George W. Bush, his cronies and the Republican Party. I cannot conceive of ever voting for a Republican, regardless of the person is. If you're a Republican and don't understand that G.W. Bush was the worst president of the modern era, don't bother writing me. We have little in commmon. Really, a good Republican should be reading the National Review Online, not a web site dedicated to kinky sex (I don't think that getting a hard spanking, followed by an ass fucking is a Republican "family value").
I am a spanking fetishist (well, duh!) That sounds sort of dark and demented. As I understand the definition of a fetishist, it is someone gripped by a fixation, or obsession. The stories published on this web site reflect my obsession with sexual spanking. Anyone without a spanking fixation might see these stories as very repetitive. Spanking stories tend to concentrate on the small details of a spanking. The sentence He pulled her across his lap and spanked her is not enough for the spanking fetishist. A spanking story will usually tell us whether she went over his lap willingly or was forced across his thighs. Her panties (or if she's really a naughty girl, lack of panties) will be described. We will find out whether she pulls her panties down or whether her disciplinarian bares her bottom. And we will know exactly what she gets spanked with (his hand, a hairbrush or a paddle).
Spanking has been a core part of my sexuality since I've been a sexual being. As a teenager the sexual fantasies I masturbated to all involved spanking girls. The girls in the spanking stories I told myself knew that they needed to be spanked, although they also knew it was going to hurt. They frequently asked for their spankings, although with some reluctance, because they knew that they deserved a hard spanking and that by the end of the spanking they would be crying.
When I was growing up I had never heard or read of anyone who found spanking erotic. It was not something that was covered more than tangentially in The Joy of Sex (which I read several times in my teens). The author, Alex Comfort, suggested that people who found spanking a turn-on needed the help of a psychotherapist (thanks Alex). I have been a feminist all my life (yes, Virginia, you can be a male feminist), so it seemed a terrible thing to get sexual enjoyment from causing a woman pain (after all, spankings are supposed to hurt). It was not until I was in my mid-twenties that I started to discover that there were women (even feminist women) who were as turned on as I am by spanking. Eventually I came to understand that pain can be perceived in different ways. Pain is not necessarily bad, only suffering is evil.
I envy people who have come of sexual age in the era of the Internet, with the vast number of spanking "blogs", spanking news groups and spanking porn sites. In the era of the World Wide Web, you can immediately know that you are not alone in your spanking obsession and that this is something you can seek out in a partner.
Although I lean toward being a top (e.g., giving the spankings), I've been a switch since the beginning. When I was a teenager and I was alone in the house I would spank myself. Sometimes I would even make up "punishments" that I would have to take for being "bad". Unfortunately my wrist would get tired before I was properly "punished". I still like a good hard spanking and some of the stories published here reflect this. I like to think that switches make the best tops, since we know what it feels like to be on the bare bottom end of a spanking.
If sexuality can be described as some point in a spectrum of gay, straight and kinked, then my sexual coloring is kinked. My sexuality is erotic spanking and erotic spanking has been a powerful force in my life. This drive has taken me to unexpected places. Having the spanking kink means that desire is powerful, but there is always a price. I have walked through what I think of as a dark valley because of this desire. But on the other side, there is a bright world of my hearts desire.
January 2005
Updated: December 2009
Case Wintermute