Erotic spanking is the practice of spanking another person for the sexual gratification of either or both parties. Subjects may use their hands, or other tools, such as spanking paddles or canes. Activities range from occasional sensual interplay to domestic discipline and may or may not include a variety of implements. Many cultures described pain as an aphrodisiac early on — the Kama Sutra, in particular, goes into specific detail on how to properly strike a partner during sex.

Practice

Many spankings are carried out with the use of bare hands, or with spanking implements such as paddles, straps, hairbrushes, and belts.

Sometimes other implements are used for the activity: such as a cane, riding crop, whip, switch (rod), birch, gloves, a plastic bottle (the action is called bottling), a ruler (even a yardstick) or martinet. However, these would not accurately be called spanking. Erotic spankings are commonly combined with other forms of sexual foreplay, such as oral sex, sexual roleplaying and/or ageplay. The most common type of erotic spanking is administered on the bare buttocks, but can also be combined with bondage, in order to heighten sexual arousal and feelings of helplessness in the spankee.

Positions used may include:

    * over the knees (OTK) or across the lap
    * stooped over a chair or couch, or bench
    * on hands and knees (bed or floor)
    * on shoulder of spanker
    * kneeling on a bed or ottoman, stooped over with hands on the floor
    * bent under the arm of the spanker
    * lying face down on a bed
    * bent over, touching toes or over a desk
    * lying on back with legs raised upward and toward chest
    * handcuffed to a bed
    * tied to a doorway
    * tied to a tree or pole that is in a safe area outside
    * legs spread apart, almost in the splits position.

Those interested in giving or receiving erotic spankings are sometimes known as spankophiles. Examples include the poet Algernon Swinburne (as implied repeatedly in his poetry) and the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as detailed in his autobiography Confessions:

 ... Miss Lambercier... exerted a mother's authority, even to inflicting on us... the punishment of infants... Who would believe this childish discipline, received at eight years old, from the hands of a woman of thirty, should influence my propensities, my desires, my passions, for the rest of my life... To fall at the feet of an imperious mistress, obey her mandates, or implore pardon, were for me the most exquisite enjoyments, and the more my blood was inflamed by the efforts of a lively imagination the more I acquired the appearance of a whining lover."