I happened across this on Dr. Dale Archer's site - he is a psychiatrist with an advice column type web page. This is a response he gave to a woman with a spanking fetish. I didn't post her letter because it was really long and she obviously had some other issues going on, but the main problem in her letter was that she fantasized about being spanked all day.

I thought this was interesting first-off because of the statistics he shares as a psychiatrist. Both the spanko percentage of our population, and more importantly that spankos aren't any more likely to have been spanked as kids than any other group of people. I used to listen to LoveLine with Dr. Drew every night until one night he explained that all fetishes were traumatic childhood moments in which the child eroticises the event as a coping mechanism, and the traumatic event later shows up around puberty as a sexual obsession. These numbers kind of dismantle that theory, thank goodness.

I also think it's interesting that he refers to himself as a "treating psychiatrist" for the issue. If you find this interesting too, tell me your thoughts

Hi NB,
First, let me say this, approximately 7% of our population engage in fantasizing about either spanking or being spanked. To make things even more challenging for treating psychiatrists, out of this group of individuals, about half were spanked as children and the other half were not.

Unfortunately, many girls grow up with the notion that a female is naturally dominated by a male. Their existence by simply being female means being punished when they do something wrong. This belief contradicts the meaning of love and marriage, which is the equality of two people who love and respect each other. The key here is not in trying to understand your dream, but rather it is in the fact that you spend so much time thinking, fantasizing, dreaming and trying to figure out all of this that you have no time to focus on real life.

So here's my advice, NB. You must learn to focus your life on reality, not fantasy. Develop hobbies, make friends, join clubs, put in extra time at work or volunteer at a worthwhile charity. You have to realize you have worth to yourself, your family and society.

Realize that being a woman is a gift that you share with someone special who will honor that gift. In the same light, realize that there is a special man out there who has the gift of being a man that you will love and cherish. Mutual respect for each other is paramount in a relationship if it is to work. Leave the fantasies behind and get out there and start contributing.......you'll be amazed at the difference. Good luck.
Dr. Archer

yea not wholly the typical response given he didn't blame it all on some traumatic event in childhood but still we see the concept that if you are spanked you aren't respected. and that being equal in a relationship means each has to act the same, that one can't be dominate and one submissive .

there is equality in a relationship involving d/s spanking. The dominate is held accountability to the sub in as much as the other way around in needing to be a role model, selfless in the decision making etc.

it is interesting article thanks for sharing.

This Doctor is pretty good. Although the text books they learn out of are still basing facts from 1984... that with ZERO case studies.
I know this because a very close friend of ours is working on a PHD in psychology at a very prestigious school right now . Fact is that D/S is
one of the earliest imprints in our DNA. Think about it. Survival of the fittest is just a conceptualized form of D/S. I think 7% is way to low
a number. I know that by age 22 ... 25% of all women in college have experimented with spanking. If there are 133 countries in the world. I get repeated hits
coming from now 117 of those countries. Well... I will let you do the math of those still hidden away in the closet.

Wow, 25% is an amazing stat (although experimenting and being a fetishist are two far different things). I can totally believe there are many more spankos in the closet than this guy took account for. I found a magazine article I wish I would have shared where the female author described the topic with fascination only one of us could possess, then bashed spanking and called it disturbing at the end. I think her closing words were, "do people really get off on this?"