New book: How to Get the Spanking You Want

...asking for it, getting it & making it better.... the first e-book by Vivian....

Here's how it all happened...

Several months ago, I was contacted by the people over at Variant Books, (they're a brand-new e-book imprint from a publishing company). Apparently, they're fans of The Disciplined Feminist and asked me if I'd consider writing a book for them.

At first, I thought the idea was crazy. I do enjoy writing about the subject of DD and spanking, but had never really considered doing an e-book about it -- and wasn't even sure I had anything "bookworthy" to say that I hadn't said already here on the blog.

Then I gave some thought to my life history on this subject, much of which I haven't shared with readers of the blog since it didn't directly relate to the articles I've posted.

But when I actually thought back, I realized I'd spent over 23 years (yikes!) negotiating my way through various types of spanking and DD relationships -- at all ages and life stages and with partners at all ages and life stages. I've spent the last ten years of my "real life" doing professional-level academic research on the psychology of gender roles and archetypes for various books, films, academic studies and other projects. Add in the three years during this blog where, largely because of that research and because of the particularly challenging relationship I have with my current partner I've questioned many of the assumptions that I and others have made about this very unique lifestyle we've chosen, and I started to think maybe I did have something valuable to say.

Plus, given the post-election lull and my strong desire not to have do anything that requires leaving my little mountain hideaway, and my current ambivalence about jumping back into the political fray, and the issue that we've discussing on the blog about the importance of career-related work that's separate from my partner, I thought, why not give the book idea a whirl?

I also thought about the emails I get virtually every week from people asking me for spanking advice. And since many of you know first-hand how slow I am at answering emails (largely because my email time is so limited and my little dial-up connection is so slow), I thought perhaps writing this book would be a great way to answer some of those emails in a more complete and accessible way.

So when asked me for book topic suggestions, I immediately thought of "How to Get the Spanking You Want." Of all the emails I get asking for advice, well over half of them are from women (and some men) who want their husband or boyfriend to spank them, but don't know how to ask, and this question seems to pop up a lot on spanking and DD forums, too.

What's more, when I did a search online for the best advice out there for people who want their partners to spank them, I was actually pretty horrified at what I found. A lot of it seemed pretty flaky, and even worse, dangerous and likely to backfire on the unsuspecting sub who tries it!

Well, when all was said and done, we wound up with a contract for a two-book series. So...

I'm happy to announce the upcoming release of "How to Get the Spanking You Want: The Complete Guide to Asking for it, Getting It & Making It Better," and the companion guide, "How to Give a Spanking: (sub title still under construction)".

"How to Get the Spanking You Want" is available now, and "How to Give a Spanking" will be available June 30. You can get more information and a copy of "How to Give a Spanking"
At any rate, I'm actually very happy with the way the project is turning out. I hope when all is said and done it will be a valuable resource for anyone looking for information on how to initiate a conversation about spanking with a partner.

Stay tuned here for all the latest updates on this strange new venture!

Excerpt: What He Wants

In the midst of pre-election frenzy, my apologies to Clare and Andrew at Variant for not posting the excerpt they wanted up sooner.  Here it is!

This is the introduction to the latest book in the spanking series, "What He Wants."

Enjoy!

 *******

INTRODUCTION:

 Dear Vivian,

Thank you for your books, they were really helpful in getting my husband to spank me –my first real spanking ever, finally!!!!!  I guess my question is, what next?  I mean, how do I get him to keep doing it?  It seems like he kind of loses interest. (reader email)

S

o there it is.

          We spend so much time fantasizing about, agonizing over, getting up the nerve to ask our partner for that first spanking.  When he finally says yes, it feels like our long journey to spanking bliss is over. Our problem is solved. We live in breathless anticipation of the next spanking, expecting a happy-ever-after spanking relationship to unfold as it does in our fantasies. 

And then, more often than not…nothing.  After that first spanking or two, it seems our partner’s lost interest.  Sometimes, it even seems like he doesn’t remember he ever spanked us in the first place. He promises spankings and then doesn’t remember to deliver them.  He says he’s too tired or too busy or “just not into it right now,” and sometimes he says these things in a not-very-nice way. And there we are, left in limbo, having had an oh-so-fleeting taste of the ecstasy of being spanked by our partner, only to have it all disappear without explanation. 

          The voices in our heads are relentless, full of doubt, guilt, shame and pain.  “Why did he stop?  Is he really just not into it?  Did he decide the whole thing is stupid, childish, ridiculous? Am I really going to have to choose between spankings and being with the person I love?”  Or, maybe worst of all, ”is there something wrong with me? Did I do it wrong?”

          The good news is that you’re not stupid, childish or ridiculous for wanting to be spanked, and there’s absolutely nothing “wrong” with you. The bad news is that there is likely something about the way you’ve been approaching being spanked by your partner is causing him to not want to do it. 

          This book is about fixing the thing that’s keeping your partner from wanting to spank you by sharing with you the secret to keeping your partner interested after that first spanking. As with most things related to spanking, the secret is very simple and very complicated all at the same time.

This secret is found in the title of the book.  It’s as simple as asking one simple question, “What does my partner want from a spanking?”  Because common sense tells us that if we make the act of spanking us more enjoyable for our partner, he’s more likely to want to do it more often and with more enthusiasm.  It’s as simple as that.  And as complex, too, because understanding what he wants requires making some profound adjustments in how most of us have been thinking about spanking.

Chances are good that this is be the first time you’ve consciously thought about what your partner wants out of spanking you.  If that’s the case, you’re not alone. Even after decades of work on this subject, it wasn’t until a few years ago that I realized that I’d never asked that question, either. More to the point, maybe, I’ve rarely, if ever, heard anyone else ask it, either.

That this question is seldom asked is in some ways surprising.  After all, those of us who want to be spanked are, by definition, seeking to enter into a relationship in which we want to submit in some very intimate ways to our partner and to his desires.  And yet, rarely do we focus on what those desires really are – or even that he might have them at all.

A big part of why we don’t think about what our partner might want out of a spanking goes back to the person we talked about a lot in the first two books – our Fantasy Spanker.

We all have a Fantasy Spanker. It’s the person in our fantasies who spanks us whenever, wherever and however we want.  He could be our fantasy version of our partner or our parent or a celebrity we have a crush on or our high school principal or babysitter or some faceless stranger with no particular identity.  Whoever he is in our heads, the relevant point is that he has no desires or needs of his own. In our fantasies, he’s entirely focused on what we want – he’s essentially a pre-programmed “spanking robot” with no function other than to fulfill our fantasies.

In How to Get the Spanking You Want, we talked about how our Fantasy Spanker gets us into big trouble when we try to get spankings in the real world from our real-life partner.  Too often, we assume that our real-life partner will do things the way our Fantasy Spanker does, and that’s where things go wrong – because of course, our real-life partner is not a pre-programmed robot, but an actual, living, breathing, thinking, feeling human being who isn’t going to do things exactly the way we fantasize about.

So it makes sense that that we might confuse our real-life partner with our Fantasy Spanker, and that we might also forget that our real-life partner has his own needs and desires with regard to giving spankings – and that those needs and desires might be very different from the ones we’ve projected onto our Fantasy Spanker.

          It’s this lack of attention on what our partner wants and needs from spanking us that I believe lies at the root of so many failed attempts to incorporate spanking into relationships beyond the first time or two. Oftentimes, we’re so focused on talking our partner into spanking us and worrying about getting what we want that we tend to forget that we have a responsibility for meeting his needs, too.

         

* From “getting” to “giving”

So is the problem that we’re selfish, thoughtless people who don’t care about our partners and just want things our way?  Of course not. Chances are good that you think about what your partner wants in all kinds of other situations, even if this is the first time you’ve thought about it with regard to spanking.  And that’s probably not an accident.  A big part of why the question, “what does my partner want from spanking me,” doesn’t get asked much may be rooted in the nature of spanking itself.

Most of us think of getting a spanking as a passive activity. When we think of getting spanked, we usually visualize ourselves as the submissive, passive recipient.  When we get a spanking, we don’t actually have to do anything except bend over and take our spanking when we’re told to and maybe not make too much of a fuss about it.  And if we do resist or behave badly, our strict, stern and commanding partner does the work of “taming the shrew” and putting us back into a submissive position. 

          Because of the naturally submissive nature of receiving a spanking, it’s likely that most of us have, however unintentionally, consistently approached spanking from a “me”-centered perspective.  Like the seagulls in Finding Nemo constantly chanting “mine, mine, mine, mine,” we spend most of our time focusing on how to get a spanking, how to get our partner to give us a spanking.  Why he’s not giving us the spanking that we want. 

          Perhaps you’re seeing that part of the problem is built into the very language that we use to discuss spanking.  Look at that last sentence again:

…we spend most of our time focusing on how to GET a spanking, how to GET our partner to GIVE us a spanking.  Why he’s not GIVING us the spanking that WE want. 

When we look at the language we use, it becomes clear pretty quickly that our traditional view of spanking is essentially a one-way street where our partner does the giving and we do the taking.

Perhaps it is, therefore, no surprise that our partners quickly tire of this arrangement, even if they might have started out being relatively enthusiastic about the idea of spanking us. No matter how much our partner loves us or wants to spank us, he’s still likely to get burned out in a situation in which he’s expected to give and give without getting his needs met in return.

          In this book, then, I’m going to suggest that one of the lost secrets of creating a long-term spanking relationship might be to begin by simply shifting our language.  What if, for example, we thought of ourselves as “giving” a spanking to our partner – not in the sense of turning him over our knee, but in the sense that we have an obligation to give him an experience of spanking that fulfills his needs and desires as well as our own?

     In my experience, this fundamental shift in mindset, from “I want him to give me a spanking,” to “what can I do to give him a positive experience during a spanking” is perhaps the single-most powerful key to building a long-term successful spanking relationship.  This book is about teaching you how to make that shift.

To order the book, please visit the link above or click here for the publisher's site.