Being a spankee is hard

Being a spankee, like most good things in life, is not just fun and games. It is hard.

Most of the time you are “born” with the kink, or have it within you since a very young age, so much so that you don’t even remember when it first happened that you felt those butterflies in your belly in relation to the S-word.

For me, it was Vhs. I would rewind a specific one just to watch over and over a scene from an old Jack Frost movie where a baby bear got his butt warmed for sneaking out of bed after being tucked in. That wasn’t the only “red flag”, just one of the earliest.

I would open my ears and stand at attention every time a spanking scene came up in cartoons or stories. I would feign disinterest while I peeked at the movie my mother was watching in the living room when I was supposed to be doing homework just because someone was getting spanked on screen. I would look up the word “spanking” on the dictionary and enciclopedia. Any of these things would cause the familiar butterflies to sparkle in my belly.

It wasn’t just that. Whenever I would play with my friends, I would play the part of the little sister and make sure I got in trouble, hoping anyone would give me a swat or an earful. My fantasies – especially those that soothed me and helped me fall asleep at night – all featured a young girl that was rebellious and troublesome to say the least. I would depict in my mind the 101+ different ways she’d get in trouble and the same number of situations where her caretaker would eventually find out and catch her.

I wasn’t even aware that any of it was “bad”. It was just part of me, a huge part of me. It made me feel well. Until someone – my cousin – told on me, and went to my mother complaining that I would drag her into lame games where people would catch us and spank us.

That was the first time I experienced shame for my “kink”, though I didn’t know it was one, and the last time I shared it openly. Starting that day, I was much more careful and private with my games, my dreams, my stories.

I tried to cover it and forget about it, oh, if I tried! I relegated it to a secret corner of my mind where I would still fantasize wjen lost in thoughts.

But it would come back, every now and then. In any important relationship I built there was this side of me testing and pushing for attention and reactions. It was how I was framed, I would only bond really deeply with older people who gave me a sense of mentoring and safety (even though they were not necessarily that worried about protecting me). I would be responsive to them, form a special relationship and grow into the friendship, learn and stabilize for a while. Unfortunately, I’d also lean onto them until they eventually realized I was becoming a burden or getting too clingy. Then they would push me away.

They felt awkward because of the position I subconsciously put them in. Even though the “spanking” word was never even in the back of my mind, we fell into a dynamic. And they didn’t want to be that person for me. So they would find ways of communicating more or less explicitly that they had had enough. In some cases, it was me getting tired and scared and pushing away. I saw their discontent coming and I would prevent what I felt was going to happen, by deciding to step back.

I’ve never had anyone reaching out to pull me back into those friendships. That shouldn’t be surprising. None of them were Tops or people who enjoyed a caring, protective role, especially when it got hard and they had to deal with my insecurities.

Most people doesn’t like the role of mentor anyway, like the evident imbalance between tops and bottoms in TTWD suggests.

The first time my brain realized spanking could be also sexual for me, I was already in university and old enough that I should’ve already known. But I was always a late bloomer, especially when it came to sex. I would start reading spanking stories not just like I had done in the past, to feel calmer and more centered, but to experience a little arousal as well. Needless to say, that part – as it sometimes happens – was never as strong as the non-sexual need and crave I experienced for spankings.

Finally, I casually met someone online who was into spanking, just like me, and we started playing. That did not end well for more than one reason, but it made me realize that spanking was something I wanted in my life. Needed, even. Not just as a dirty secret hidden in the back of my mind, that I would explore in the dark of my room.

That relationship broke and I was shuttered. I started a healing process and with a professional managed to identify the pattern that had been eluding my rational mind for my whole life while still “happening”. Spanking was my bridge. It had always been my coping mechanism. I would use spanking and the involved dynamic to feel safe, protected and balanced, to ease up part of the anxiety I carried. I would fall into the dynamic no matter how hard I tried to have things go differently, no matter if I let the word spanking remain out of it.

It was part of me and I had to come to terms with it.

So I looked online, in the only place I knew I’d find likeminded people, and I was blessed to approach a friendly and lively community on Anna Reilly Spanking Romance. I learned so much and finally felt like I was in the right place for me. Sure, it would hurt to not get attention sometimes, but I could finally let it out, be me. I could share with people who were on the same page and would hardly judge me for being “a brat”. I discovered amazing friends and truths about us and TTWD. I also got my first Top.

That of being in a spanking relationship 24/7, lasting for months, could be another story in itself, but one for another time, maybe.

What’s relevant for the purpose of this post is that it was ups and downs, beautiful and scary, hard and easy. It gave me lots of emotions and almost got me to let go again, let go for real. It kept me sane through a period of my life where I really needed someone to help me move forward, someone who would make sure I didn’t fall into pieces.

And then, like it happens for all the good things that you realize can’t last forever (or that can’t give you exactly what both of you in the relationship need), my under-supervision-bratty time was over and there was the task of adjusting to being alone again. It’s still something I’m working on.

If none of what I said so far has convinced you, let me make this straight-er: it hurts like hell. It’s fucking hard. Especially after you’ve known the difference, it hurts in a physical way when you are aware of what you need but can’t and won’t get the “attention” your body and brain crave.

You’ll be experiencing some sort of withdrawal, then trying to get over it, then blaming yourself for feeling crappy, for being needy and not having it together like any functional adult. Mind me, in the meanwhile you are, of course, being a very functional adult…it’s just it’s not enough.

You carry the weight of your mistakes on your own, wrestle the nasty thoughts and most times let them win, just because angrily berating yourself hurts less than you thinking no one will ever want you or care for you or be there the way you need without seeing you like a burden of some sort.

Being a spanko in a relationship is hard because you have to find the right balance between being a normal adult and needing help and attention in constantly new forms. You have to open up and give up control. You have to get your partner to understand your needs and support them. You have to be honest and open, which is undoubtedly tough, especially when you know you’re cornering yourself in a situation that will make you cringe in shame and from the amount of swats that will light your rear up.

Being a spankee in a non-relationship it’s just as hard, because it’s just you, you and your awareness that no one cares if you skip meals or get a ticket for speeding. Or maybe you have a lot of people who care, but will just be hurt and disappointed and worried for your behavior while still not giving you an inch of Toppiness.

It’s not enough. All the people in the world worshiping you and loving on you feel barely enough when you can’t get that one reaction (though you still feel blessed for being smothered by friends and family). You don’t want to hurt the people who actually care and you know there is no sensible alternative, so you pull up your sleeves and work hard to try and sound as fine as possible while your emotions hurt in your chest and you feel like banging your head on the wall (not literally).

Then there is another situation, and for me it’s the winner in the top 10 of the hard struggles of being a spanko: when you are in a relationship with a vanilla, or simply someone who will not give you what you want. They don’t realize how much that hurts you and how untrue you are being to yourself and your nature, maybe you too don’t realize how much you’re missing out and stifling down. You love your partner, and that means you stick with them no matter how hard. After all, if everyone can live without spanking in their life, why can’t you? Why couldn’t you stop being a needy child and prove that you can work properly without that special extra aid?

And that’s where you probably go back in the closet, for as long as your body and brain allow you to do so. For as long as you can be in denial.

Don’t worry, there are also a lot of cases or situations where people are happy and find their true match. Pretty sure it’s not an easy road, though.

So yeah, all of this is to assure you that spanking is a tough business that can hurt more than just your backside, even (more) when it’s not there.

You’re not alone in your struggles. You’re not bad or weak because you falter. You’re not a baby because you are needy, nor are you unworthy or insignificant.

This is just a hard business. Being a spankee is hard.

Though sometimes it’s worth it.

And it’s for those times we keep going, and we keep hoping.