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 50 years old. I am married, to my second wife. 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 is 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.
I married the first woman I told about my spanking fixation. I told her during our first few weeks together. She liked bondage. One afternoon when we were playing around she bent over the couch and asked me to tie her hands. After I tied her hands, I gave her bottom a few smacks. She really liked this and I spanked her until her bottom was red. I was in heaven. I was finally spanking a girl who loved being spanked (or so it seemed). I fell madly in love (or lust) with her. We worked in the same profession, liked some of the same books. I thought that we both liked spanking (what can I say, I was young). Obviously true love. Years later, after one child, when spanking and sex in general had disappered from our marriage, it turned out that that it was not quite true love. She eventually decided that she was not interested in being married and took off, leaving me as a single parent.
When I unexpectedly found myself single again, I decided that this time I would find what my heart desired: a woman who liked spanking. I got involved with one of the early Internet BDSM e-mail lists (this was before the Web). It was through this list that I met the woman who would become my wife. I liked what she had to say in her posts to the group, so I invited her for dinner one summer evening. I had no idea what she looked like, but she seemed like a really nice person. When I opened the door there stood a lovely blond in a white dress. Beauty and brains! It really was love at first sight for both of us.
I have been very fortunate in my second marriage. My beloved and I have been through a lot together. She became a stepmother for my child. As anyone who has ever tried being a stepparent knows, this is a tough job. Even harder than being a "biological" parent. We've been married for well over a decade and a half now, through the thick and the thin. We moved to another state for a job that went bad and then moved back to where we started. My profession has been through huge changes over my career. My beloved stood by me when I was terrified that I'd be unemployed and unable to pay our bills. In all this time we still love each other deeply.
My beloved is not a spanking fetishist. She is not someone who looked up spanking obsessively in the dictionary when she was growing up or always got a little thrill when she heard the word spanking. Sexual spanking has ebbed and flowed in our marriage. The first several years of our marriage I spanked my beloved almost every time we made love. While my beloved is not a spanking fetishist she enjoyed the way it made her feel, and the games we played between us. Things changed over time for my beloved, and she no longer enjoys being heavily spanked. (I am usually the one getting her paddle these days!) She does, however, understand the intense obsession of a spanking fetishist and so it is with her knowledge and blessing that I have gone outside our marriage to find spanking friends I can play hard with. She loves me enough to want me to enjoy that "which sings to my soul," as she puts it, and she celebrates with me when I go off to play with my women friends.
I am a very lucky man.
January 2005
Updated: October 2008
