How long have you been involved in the online spanking community? How did you first find it? Where do you spend your time online? How important is the internet to your spanko side… what would be the impact if you suddenly didn’t have it?

 

 

 

We had big time internet issues here this week and ended up off-line for a couple of days. Got us thinking about how much the internet has to do with our connection to spanking… and thus, the topic of this week’s Roundtable. A big thank you to everyone that took the time to share. Really enjoyed the discussion.

Let’s get things started by taking a look at the Quick Response Poll results.

 

How long have you been involved in the online spanking community?
Less than 3 months. ~ 3%
3 to 12 months. ~ 6%
1 to 2 years. ~ 18%
3 to 10 years. ~ 52%
More than 10 years. ~ 21%

 

Not a lot of online newbies! Nearly 3 in 4 have been involved in the online spanking community for at least 3 years. Imagine that newbies are far less likely to take the plunge and vote in the poll or leave a comment though.

To get more insights into the topic we move to the comments. Some good ones too… and an extra thank you to those that made the special effort. We do appreciate it.

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Hermione said: I discovered the community exactly three years ago. My husband told me about spanking pictures and videos on the internet – I had never considered the possibility. I started searching, and found a wonderful world I never knew existed.

The cyberworld is now extremely important to me. The friends I have made and the online life I have are in some ways more important than my real-life vanilla one. At least the online life is more interesting and fulfiling.

What if I didn’t have the internet? Don’t even go there!

~Know what you mean about “online” friends. It’s easier to be open with them from the start… and thus the connection with them is that much bigger.~

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munchkin said: I discovered spanking stuff online in I believe about 1996 or 1997. For a while I read stories on things like “Bernie’s Spanking Page” or whatever it was called back then. A few years later I got involved on alt.com for a while, though it wasn’t really what I would have liked, it’s the best I could find at the time. I became actively involved as far as joining in on discussion boards probably in the last, I dunno, 8 years or so ago. I started out with that on SIN, and have since moved to other sites like Bottomlines, Fetlife, and Spankolife.

The online community is very important to me. Honestly spankos make up most of my social network, and most live in other states (or countries) so without the internet I would lose almost all of my social outlet.

~Yep, most of our social network is made up of spankos too. Living in a tiny-tiny town where the focus is NASCAR and church it’s tough to find local vanilla friends… nevermind other spankos. So like you we have friends across the nation, so not being online would be really tough.~

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iggy said: I put 3 to 10 years, but now that I’ve written this novel in response to the query I think it might be longer than that!

I honestly am not sure the first time I started looking online. I know it was before I even got a computer. It was sometime when I was living in Calgary — my parents had recently got a computer and internet and when I would come back to BC to them for vacation I’d sneak online to look.

The first things I found were the Eastern European severe stuff. That would be enough to scare me straight for a while (read: next visit). I’d wonder what sort of sick person would do a search that would bring up results like that and wonder what was wrong with me for looking up that stuff. Eventually I stumbled onto Bernie’s Spanking Page and web ring and there were a whole bunch of sites that weren’t crazy brutal. I was still convinced the cops were going to come pounding on my door though.

Then one visit, I came back…popped my “Bernie’s” search query into yahoo and *gasp* it was gone!!!! I was seriously convinced I was on some sort of list of pervs for looking at the site and that I was going to be arrested at any moment. I sort of stopped looking at that point and it was a couple of more years before I got my own computer. My boyfriend at the time had made me feel pretty bad about being a sicko into kinky shit so I didn’t start looking again for a while yet.

Once I started looking again though I once again fell into the top hits all being the really brutal stuff. Eventually I stumbled upon “Taken in hand” which still wasn’t what I had in mind, but at least wasn’t scary brutal. From there I got a link to SIN and went over there (just looked, that was in 2004). I joined SIN and immediately quit when I got my first SINmail. Took me a while to get up the nerve to join again, but I eventually did. Then I quickly got bored with the stie cuz I wasn’t interested in cruising people’s profiles, chat scared me, I didn’t want to watch their videos and I wasn’t interested in reading the stories. Then one day I was bored and decided to read a story and discovered that the “stories” link wasn’t just stories at all. It was a whole forum with serious discussions and fun discussions and I was HOME!!!!

I never intended to ever post. I was just going to read. Then I posted once…and it was addictive! Of course, I was never going to meet these people or have friends. Then I made friends. Then I went to TN and met people. Then I got spanked! Most of those people I am still friends with today.

I’ve moved on from SIN which is sad because for a long time it was my home on the internet and where I felt most comfortable. Nowadays I spend time on Bottom Lines, spankolife, fetlife, I blog when I feel like it, pop into friends blogs and generally flit about.

I seriously doubt I’d have ever gotten spanked without the internet. I’m probably the only girl on the face of the planet who has only gotten spanked outside of her own country.

Like munchkin, the spanking world makes up a lot of my social network. I do occasionally go into a break mode and other things come in and fill that void (like facebook or playstation)…what can I say…I like my fun! If the internet were to suddenly disappear, probably all my chances at getting spanked would disappear right along with it. So, we don’t want that to happen!!

~Your journey is an interesting one for sure… and it shows the difference between the internet now and say 10 years ago. It’s much-much easier to find the non-scary stuff these days.~

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Bonnie said: Hi Todd and Suzy, I checked “More than Ten Years.” I think it’s been about fifteen, although I began as a lurker. I followed a winding course from ASS/SSS newsgroups to Delphi forums to long defunct discussion boards to sites like Bernie’s and Wulfram to Yahoo groups and finally to blogs. At that point, I decided, “I can do that,” and dove right in.

Today, I focus my online time on blogs, both mine and others. I visit places like Fetlife, Spankolife, and MySpace, but my heart lies here in the blogosphere.

The internet is very important to my spanko side. For this aspect of my life, these friends are my peer group. Blogs provide a never-ending source of inspiration, innovation, and confirmation. I believe that relationships must be regularly refreshed and thrive on novelty. Thanks to our playful, clever friends, that isn’t a problem for Randy and me.

If we didn’t have the internet? Well, life would be a lot less enjoyable.

Thanks for a great question!
Bonnie

~Your journey online is similar to Todd’s… and there are actually a lot of folks from those old newsgroups that have made their way into the modern online spanking community. It makes one wonder how much bigger this community will be 10 years from now.~

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Pixie said: I’ve been a member of the online community ever since I first discovered groups and forums back when I was in college. That was how I first found out there were others out there like me that had a fascination with spanking. Bless Google.

These days, I’m not nearly as active in groups but I do lurk on a couple forums. I am also an avid blog reader. I’d say aside from working on PB related things, I spend the biggest chunk of my time reading spanking blogs.

Of course the internet is pretty key to my spanko side. It’s how I stay connected to the majority of spankos that I know not to mention that it’s essential for me to be able to blog and update PB. It would mean a total life overhaul if it was suddenly unavailable for an extended period of time!

~For those that found spanking online within the last 10 years or so, chances are they did so with the help of Google. Easy to use search engines have been a huge help to the online spanking community. Without them… the path Iggy took back in the day would still be the familiar one.~

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Suzy Says: I would say I’ve been involved in the online spanking community since 1996 because that’s when I first was chatting with Todd about spanking and with his assistance and my curiosity I started exploring the online spanking group sites and being involved in online spanking topic threads on message boards. We attended our first Shadow Lane spanking party in 2006 in Las Vegas and that really opened up more doors for further online spanking communities and offline ones as well.

I spend most of my time online chatting with my online friends which are 95% spankos.. I check out FetLife and BottomLines and chat on Yahoo Messenger, the most. I spend some of my time on blogs, mine and others. I also spend a bit of time online planning our trips and parties. With a relatively tight budget, pre-planning costs and locations and lodging is always financially beneficial.

Without the internet, our spanking time would decrease substantially. We’d still have our one-on-one spanking erotically and disciplinary, but the basic playful spanking wouldn’t be near as frequent as it is when you read, talk, interact and play with others online and offline.

Sometimes when I’m feeling pouty and neglected ;-P I whine to Todd about all the online time we spend but then he reminds me of all the benefits we enjoy with our spanking friends and how much we share together reading, chatting and exploring the internet and I realize I’m just being moody and that I have probably now earned a spanking for all my whining and so it’s all good

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Todd Says: I first found the online spanking community in the early 1990s when I first got online. In fact, that was before I owned my first computer. I assumed that there was spanking stuff online… and that was certainly the case. I found spanking related message boards on AOL and different newsgroups, as well as some of the early spanko sites (like Bernie’s Spanking Pages) that featured pictures and video clips.

I can recall opening up a 10 second video clip and then going downstairs and doing my laundry for half an hour… and then going back upstairs to see if the clip was ready to watch. lol, it was exciting stuff!

The newsgroups were my focus back then though. I mostly lurked, but did leave the rare comment here and there. Read just about everything I could find though.

In time the newsgroups drifted from spanking to a series of impossible to follow personal conflicts between posters (”flame wars”) and then an endless amount of spam… and quit reading. The same sort of flame war stuff hit the AOL boards too and another online spanking source was lost. That left finding pictures, videos and the sporadic site… and that didn’t hold my focus in any consistent way.

It wasn’t until blogs took off about 5 years ago that I again got interested in the online spanking community. Not only did I again find real people that had a real interest in spanking… but they tended to be *happy* and lead full lives (ie, they weren’t looking to endlessly argue online). I liked how pictures and videos were part of blogging, and how much easier high-speed connections made viewing them.

From there I found lots of new spanking related sites. Yahoo Groups and other message boards, FetLife, SpankFinder, the different pay sites (like Punished Brats)… Yahoo and other char forums. It’s a large collection and I enjoy them all for different reasons. Blogging… both writing here and reading elsewhere… is what gets the largest amount of my online time though.

I would definitely miss it if my online time were suddenly lost. I’d miss it a lot. I’ve made and built many friendships online and while several of them have crossed over to ‘real life’… keeping in regular touch is still focused online. Would miss that the most. Don’t see that happening though.

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All the pictures from this week’s Roundtable Wrap-up come from SpankingOnline. Excellent site with frequent updates.  Discreet billing at as little at $13 a month.  Plenty of free material too, so well worth checking out.